


Affliction of the Greeks (1964-1965)

by fabfemmeboy



Series: Immutability and Other Sins [4]
Category: Glee
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-08
Updated: 2017-12-16
Packaged: 2019-02-12 00:38:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 23
Words: 143,287
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12947538
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fabfemmeboy/pseuds/fabfemmeboy
Summary: When Blaine began his Masters program in August 1964, he expected it would be just like college: plenty of booze, parties, and women. But an eccentric young man with a strange collection of books seemed determined to change all that.(Yes, Blaine is with other people. He needs to be to get to a point where he and Kurt can reunite.)





	1. Chapter 1

Part 1  
  
Blaine knew it was silly to be nervous. After all, if there was one thing he'd learned in four years of college, it was how to have a great time at a party. Not that he could remember most of the bashes in detail - it was a little hazy, maybe, but he remembered the feeling. The sense of shedding himself at the door, stepping over the threshold into a world of beautiful girls and interesting boys who had let themselves go, of joining into something so much larger and...and  _brighter_  than themselves. Something lighter.  
  
Something happier.  
  
He couldn't speak for the rest of the people he'd spent time with at parties, but it was definitely true for himself. He assumed it was the case for the rest of the party-goers as well. Why else go? Why else dance the night away if it didn't make them happy? If it didn't make them feel freer than they could under other circumstances? If it didn't let them let go of the entire world around them and just-...just  _be_? No papers, no lectures, no exams, no nightmares, no mistakes, just three chords and a cup pressed into his hand...  
  
There was something about being able to lose himself in sensations - in the feeling of the music pulsing through the floor and up through his shoes, in the dull burn of liquor that lingered in his throat, in the jealous glares boring into the back of his head as he danced with the prettiest girl in the room...something about the combination of all those things left him with a sense of being so completely  _right_. Why wouldn't that feeling be enough to make all people happy?  
  
But tonight was different. He wasn't big man on campus anymore, the senior and leader of almost every club a music major might be caught dead in. He wasn't on top this time, and the uncertainty left him with a restlessness he couldn't quite shake.  
  
He'd made the choice, he reasoned to himself as he stared at his reflection in the mirror. His hair wouldn't stay down the way it as supposed to, and tonight of all nights was  _not_  when he wanted people to become acquainted with the Medusa-lookalike on top of his head. His first partyas a graduate student was a time to show his best possible self.  
  
It could have been worse, he reminded himself. He could be learning a new area at the same time he was meeting a new student body. At least he knew Stanford and its of-campus areas like the back of his hand. He'd found his way home so many times and from so many parts of town that he didn't have to worry about any of that. He would stumble home and wake up safely in his bed tomorrow afternoon...or, if the night went as well as it often did, he would wake up safely in someone else's bed and walk home around lunchtime.  
  
...Maybe it didn't happen  _often_ , but often  _enough_. But maybe there would be a difference between college and a masters program that would increase his odds.  
  
...Did he really want there to be a difference? College had been pretty great, especially senior year. And now that the Mendicants weren't making him leave because he was the only guy left on campus who had more than eight months' experience with a cappella, he still had people he knew around. Maybe, with a little luck, this year would be just like last year but with a few new people.  
  
Smoothing his hair finally into place, Blaine smiled at his reflection. With the few extra minutes he'd taken to do his hair, combined with the time he'd taken to select just the right bowtie for his first party as a graduate student, had helped virtually guarantee that he wouldn't arrive too early. he hated getting to a party before everyone else when it was just him and the host... the awkwardness of being locked in a one-on-one conversation like that as unbearable. It reeked of smalltalk he would hear in his mother's living room, over pre-dinner cocktails as the server readied the house for the meal. Only instead, there would be a beer in one hand instead of an elegant stemmed glass, and the host would be setting out bags of chips instead of waiting for the cook to bring out the roast duck. The silence of it made his skin crawl, but downing the drink more quickly in an effort to alleviate the rising tension would be rude even in such a casual environment...  
  
Best to avoid it all together.  
  
The walk was a little on the long side, but Blaine didn't mind the distance - nor the heat; he'd gotten used to that sometime in the middle of his sophomore year, even if he did kind of miss sweaters. It wasn't nearly as warm for as much of the year as if he lived further south, but the temperature range best suited for sweaters and blazers was in-season for a much shorter period than he as used to. In Ohio, the Dalton blazer only felt too warm during the first and last months of school, with the first snow often falling before Halloween; he doubted he could get away with such a wardrobe anywhere in California. Well- except for maybe San Francisco. He'd never been, but Mark Twain had said the coldest winter he'd ever spent was a summer there.  
  
Twain? He thought that was what he remembered. Lit class was a little hazy, too.  
  
But what he minded far more than the dry heat that lingered even as the sun set, was the silence of mid-evening that hung in the palm trees. With most of the student body moved into their dorms but not yet attuned to where the good parties were, and with no fraternities throwing bashes to attract a fresh crop of new pledges until next weekend, even the streets closest to campus were relatively free of noise, save the shuffling of Blaine's bucks and an errant pebble bouncing down the sidewalk.  
  
Blaine quickened his pace, rendered uneasy by the stillness around him that threatened to release the clamour inside his head that he was barely holding at bay. By the time he turned the corner and saw a smattering of who he assumed to be his fellow music education masters candidates, he breathed out heavily in relief. He reached down to straighten his sweater vest and drew in a deep breath, a grin settling over his face.  
  
This was going to be a great night. He could tell already.  
  
More confident, he strode across the lawn, up the porch steps, and into the two-story craftsman-style house that Blaine was certain housed more people than could fit comfortably. The party might not have been in full swing just yet, but it as definitely on its way there. Students stood around the base of the staircase, perched atop the second-hand, overstuffed couch, gathered around the radio as it played a [Beatles song](http://youtu.be/a_csEEI4PFE)..but it only took a moment for Blaine to conclude where he wanted to start off his evening. A collection of wallflowers and life-of-the-party types had taken up residence around the kitchen table, which was absolutely covered in cans and bottles - all full now, but not for long.  
  
Blaine squeezed his way between two groups of guys talking about the addition of Oregon and Oregon state to the AAW conference. It was new this year, and a big change, even if Blaine was sure the Stanford Indians could still lose their division handily no matter how many people were in it. He could have gone somewhere with a better team to root for, he reminded himself ruefully. But there were more important things to worry about this year than rooting for a good team, and either way the games were always a good time. He popped into the kitchen and snagged a plastic cup from the counter, then studied the contents of the round wooden table. The booze was always best at the first party - when people still had the money to buy their favourites - but the quality went down in time with people's level of caring, anyway; by finals week, they would drink anything.   
  
Well, he would, anyway. Some people were more picky.  
  
He was deciding between a rum and coke and one of the many brands of vodka on the table when everything stopped. Looking back, Blaine wasn't sure whether he felt the arm first or heard the voice; he mostly just knew his body suddenly went warm, then his stomach descended icily through his torso - like drinking a huge gulp of a milkshake, but ending instead at the top of his hips, where his legs suddenly felt quivery.  
  
"Excuse me."  
  
An arm slid past his, shoulder leaning into him as a square, study hand reached between him and the next partygoer to grasp a bottle of gin. The voice as smooth against Blaine's nerves, resonant but light somehow. Blaine swallowed hard and tried to focus on the details of something tangible and innocuous to bring things back into focus and calm his inexplicable anxiety, settling finally on the boy's sleeve. It was odd - close-fitting and off-white, finely knit or woven with a bit of texture to it, not really a sweater but certainly not a buttondown shirt like his own. It reminded him almost of a longjohn sleeve at least, from what he'd seen of one on Bonanza - but who wore that if it as above freezing? Actually, did anyone wear one since 1880?  
  
Just as quickly as the arm appeared, it disappeared from view and feel, taking the bottle with it.  
  
Blaine's fingers clutched around the first bottle he could find, the glass warming quickly under his palm. The feeling - the quivering in his legs, the hot and cold passing each other throughout his torso, the panicked dizziness-...none of it was new. But none of it was how he planned on starting his first grad-level party...or any subsequent party, for that matter. With a sure movement, he poured himself a drink, then stepped back from the table, cup clutched against his palm. He lifted it to his lips, tipping it back quickly, swallowing as the rum slipped down his throat. Shaking his head, he grinned to himself and stepped forward again to pour another.  
  
Those were feelings he would much rather have - the burn and the pleasant light-headnessness from drinking too fast instead of an icy flutter and unending queasiness.  
  
After pouring a second drink, he moved into the living room to scope out his new classmates as he drank more slowly. they didn't look so different from his old classmates, though there were noticeably fewer females in the room than at the parties he as used to. There were always plenty of girls at back-to-school bashes for undergraduates...and, of course, any party with the Mendicants attracted a better-than-average turnout by girls. He wondered if it was because there were fewer female graduate students. He knew that Stanford had a limit on female students for a long time because Leland Stanford's mother didn't want it to become a West Coast Smith or Vassar, but college had been a lot closer to equal than he expected. Maybe his view was just skewed - after an all-boys school, any girls seemed refreshingly plentiful.  
  
He didn't mind being around boys at school, it just made things so... _complicated_. He didn't need that, especially now that he wasn't 17 anymore.  
  
Or maybe girls were just less likely to come to a party where they didn't know anyone? He hoped so. Otherwise they'd be a very in-demand group, and while he'd found that having a dozen boys singing backup for him helped get what he wanted, it wasn't-  
  
He heard the slur first.  
  
"So who's the queer?"  
  
Though the tone was casual, almost amused, Blaine froze, cup halfway to his lips, looking around surreptitiously to see if anyone else had heard it, had seen him react-...god he hoped not... He tried to see where it was aimed. Not at him, surely, he wasn't- He didn't look- he  _wasn't_. There was no way anyone at that party could know about a mistake he had made once, an illness he'd recovered from. It wasn't like the chicken pox scar on his shoulder, it didn't leave a lasting mark even if it  _felt_  as destructive as leprosy.  
  
"Oh, that's just Gatsby," came the offhand reply.  
  
"Who?"  
  
"I dunno his real name, we all just call him Gatsby."  
  
"I've never seen him - is he new?"  
  
"No. He wasn't here last year, but he knows...shit. Janie's friend, with the long black hair. He's not in our program, he does something else. Anthropology or Italian or something? something with Romans, 'cause he said the togas were wrong at this one party."  
  
"What party?"  
  
Blaine finally felt inconspicuous enough to look at the speakers - two boys, neither of whom he knew, but one he'd seen around the Music department. A cellist, if he remembered right. Satisfied that they clearly weren't involving him, he let his gaze wander to see who the boys meant. It wasn't difficult to tell even in a house that was growing more crowded by the minute, the boy stood out. Not only was he tall even as he leaned against the kitchen counter, but who else wore suspenders to a party? Who wore  _any_  of that outfit?  
  
Not outfit -  _ensemble_. Maybe even costume, Blaine couldn't tell.  
  
Gatsby's clothes clearly gave rise to the moniker, with wide-leg navy pinstripe trousers held up by brown suspenders. He wore wing tip brogues that looked like they'd been well-used over their 40-year lifespan, give or take. And on top- Blaine didn't need to look around the room to know it was the same white thermal undershirt that had brushed past him earlier. How many others could there be? The fabric pulled taut over Gatsby's broad chest, emphasized by the leather straps that hugged his torso with every movement, and Blaine swallowed hard as his gaze drifted upward, past Gatsby's clean-shaven neck and chin; the boy-  _man_ , Blaine thought to himself sickly - had a wideset mouth lined by pink lips, and a flared nose. But what really caught Blaine's attention were the eyes large, emerald green, and intense even as he gazed casually around the room. From the movements and generally apathetic expression, Blaine would have assumed that Gatsby was just idly perusing the crowd, but the eyes made the simple action seem so much more... _intense_.  
  
Blaine jerked his gaze up further, past the brim of Gatsby's brown driving cap that made his already heart-shaped face seem even flatter and broader. The fluttery icy feeling was back with a vengeance, like a flock of frozen birds had swooped into his stomach and gotten stuck.  
  
Not this again.  
  
Anything but  _this_  again.  
  
No matter how many times it popped up - flared up, like rheumatism or an unsightly skin rash - it still caught him off-guard and left him with the same sick, disgusted feeling. The same helplessness, like no matter what he did-...no matter how much he wanted to be different, no matter how much he wanted to be right, to be  _well_...to no longer have to feel like this. To no longer be sick.   
  
Would it always creep up on him when he least expected it? Would there never be a time in his life where that feeling wouldn't twist his stomach and send a rush through him and make him  _want_ -   
  
Had anyone ever been truly cured of this feeling? He'd grown up hearing tales of his father's patients who could be cured,  _fixed_ , if only they worked hard enough and were willing to subject themselves to gruesome treatments, but he shouldn't have needed that. He wasn't a severe case; he regretted what he'd done, and he wasn't unrepentant. He had... _manifested_  a little worse than he would have wanted to, but he wanted to change. He honestly did. That was supposed to matter.  
  
So why didn't it? Why couldn't he manage to get himself straightened out? Why did these things keep sneaking up on him until the mere sight of a boy in a ridiculous, eccentric costume of an outfit could leave him feeling far more nauseous than any alcohol ever would?   
  
He tore his gaze away as quickly as he could, searching the room for something else - anything else - to catch his attention. He could do this. He'd done this a few thousand times before, hadn't he? He just needed to find a distraction he could latch onto. Someone else he could like instead of the one he wasn't allowed to. He found his distraction laughing beside the staircase with a group of guys: she was fairly tall, almost eye-to-eye with several of the boys who seemed to be doing their best to flirt with her, which meant Blaine was certain she was taller than he was. Not that he necessarily minded that - he liked the feeling of leaning up on his toes to kiss a girl who towered over him. Her laugh was loud, enthusiastic, but genuine - not put-on to get what she wanted from the boys who would give her anything she asked. She held all the cards in that circle, and the glint in her blue eyes said that she knew it damned well, but she stood with a look of bemusement as the group of boys tried to one-up each other.   
  
Blaine couldn't hear any of what was being said to her, but he knew the scenario well. Four years of college - plus three years of watching the students at an all-boys school try to con women into being their date - had let him see the ritual a hundred thousand times: some tried to get her to grin, to think they were funny, but so far that didn't seem to be doing any good; others put on the charm, wore smarmy smiles in the hopes of seeming like smooth gentlemen callers, but she rolled her eyes at those boys; others stood awkwardly on the sidelines, trying to catch her eye as the other boys clowned around to try to win her. Those boys thought - Blaine could guarantee from experience - that if only she would look their way, and they could bond for a moment through eye contact about the idiocy of the show-offs trying to get her attention, that they would win her heart by not being like the others.  
  
She flashed a grin and patted one boy's arm as she excused herself, and though Blaine could tell that the guys were clamouring to refill her drink, she strode toward the kitchen alone. She wore a [dress](http://customstyle.files.wordpress.com/2012/08/1964_dress_mccalls-7349.jpg) like Audrey Hepburn might wear - boatnecked and sleeveless, belted just above the pencil skirt, the cranberry fabric stunning with her brown shoulder-length hair and bright eyes. The skirt hugged her hips as she walked toward the kitchen, and if there were any girl in that room that could prove a ready distraction, she was it - Blaine was sure of it.   
  
As the girl got closer, a slim cigarette delicately balanced between two fingers while the cup dangled in her other hand, Blaine opened his mouth to speak. Gazing at her from across the room all night would be better than gazing at- at  _him_  all night, but not by enough. He would get distracted from his distraction too easily. No; he needed to speak to her, to engage with her, to be close to her all evening until he forgot how the night began. But before he could get out a "Hi, what's your name?", she was past him and into the kitchen. She winked at Gatsby as he leaned against the counter, and Blaine turned quickly to keep himself from staring at either of them during the exchange.  
  
This wasn't going to work.  
  
There were things he could handle at a party like this, and things he couldn't. And pining mindlessly after a girl who didn't notice him as she passed wasn't going to end the night the way he wanted. It had been awhile since that had been a real concern of his; senior boys got their pick of girls at parties, really, and even if he wasn't in one of the well-respected fraternities...he was a Mendicant. That was almost better.  
  
Actually, that was almost always better.  
  
As much as musicians might not have ranked high on-campus compared to the football team or student government groups, the Mendicants were doing really well for an upstart group. They had been around less than a year, but girls on campus already came up to him and asked if he was the lead singer of the group - usually before scrawling their number or dorm room on his notebook. Unlike Yale, there weren't other acapella groups to choose from, which gave the Mendicants an edge, and no other schools in the area had groups at all which only helped. The group's standing was even higher among musicians on-campus...and within the Music Department. They were quickly approaching Beatles status, and if there was one thing that should get him...  
  
Besides. If there were one time he could be himself and get the kind of attention he would need to prove himself in front of this new group of classmates, it was when he was performing. If there was one time he could feel like he wasn't hiding in a crowded room...  
  
But he couldn't just yet. There was a certain amount of wooing he needed to be able to do. Blaine swallowed hard and downed the rest of his drink in a long gulp. He paused, waiting until he could hear the girl's laugh back near the staircase again, then headed into the kitchen. He kept his head down, trying to avoid looking up for fear that he might catch Gatsby's gaze.   
  
It wasn't his fault, he told himself as he moved around the table to find something to drink. He never would have noticed Gatsby if the man weren't so  _eccentric_  about everything. He could have avoided looking at the man's eyes entirely if only-  
  
He felt a hand on his arm. "Looking for something?"  
  
It as the same voice from earlier, and Blaine didn't have to glance over to know what shirt sleeve he would see on the wrist. "I-..." he choked out nervously, shifting, not sure what to say. He wanted to tell Gatsby to get away from him, to leave him alone, to never look at him again because the rolling boil in his stomach was as revolting as it was terrifying, because the feeling of those green eyes boring into him made him feel so horribly uncomfortable that he wanted to crawl out of his own skin and leave it behind on the floor of the house as he ran off down the street.   
  
When he couldn't say anything, Gatsby came closer, leaning over the table. "Rum, right?" he asked, fingers dancing over the bottletops as he plucked his way through the assortment on the table, trying to find the liquor he was looking for. Blaine shifted again, arms crossing over his chest. He could feel the warmth of Gatsby's body through both shirts, could smell his aftershave, could feel the musculature of his hips and thighs pressing close, and every moment felt slower and more agonizing than the last.   
  
He had to get away. He had to get out of there and get Gatsby away from him and never look back - and then he could feel better. Then he could enjoy the party the way he had hoped to, and he could flirt with that girl, and he could win her affection and be top dog from the outset, and then everything could be easier. Everything would be fine if he could just get through tonight and get away from the guy with the entrancing green eyes and the spicy scent and the tight undershirt in public. If he could just-  
  
"There you go." He could hear the smile in Gatsby's voice as the man poured him a drink. "Come back and see me if you need any more - looks like I'm the bar master tonight, Janie's off with some guy, so here I am."   
  
"Thanks," Blaine replied uncomfortably, snatching the cup closer to his body as he moved away as quickly as he could. He drank the rum and Coke quickly, feeling dizzy as the third drink hit him. It was so much better than the other type of dizziness that had been plaguing him all evening, and he reveled in it.  
  
* * * * *  
  
The best part about parties with a bunch of people in a music program - the really best part? Aside from them all being really talented and pretty and fun and cool and everything? Was that there was always a setup for people to start singing at some point during the night.  
  
Blaine wasn't sure what exactly it was he was drinking as he stepped up to the microphone, or what number drink it was, but he knew it was tasty. Really tasty. The guy behind him - someone named Julian, he was a second year...something, Blaine didn't remember exactly what. Something with a Masters in the music department but not in education - was banging out the familiar [riff](http://youtu.be/dk3Ei_yoI4c) on his guitar, and even if Blaine didn't understand why people had thought to bring instruments, he was really glad they had. He could've played it on piano if there were one here, but it wouldn't sound right. Someone else had an upright bass and was plucking it, and someone named Gil who Blaine usually saw pushing a timpani through the basement halls of the music building was banging pencils enthusiastically - and mostly in-rhythm - against a desk. The effort was completely drowned out, but he didn't seem to care.  
  
He tipped his head back and emptied his cup, dropping the empty plastic to the side so he could grip the microphone stand with both hands as he started to sing.  
  
 _Girl, you really got me going  
You got me so I don't know what I'm doing_  
  
The crowd had started to gather as the song began, and by the time he got through the first line he could start to pick his way through the slightly-fuzzy people filling the living room and area by the stairs to start making sense of who was where. Aside from a few couples that had peeled off to make out in the corners - or upstairs where Blaine assumed the bedrooms were - the entire party was watching him sing. The knowledge fueled him; it always did.   
  
There were so many people here who didn't know him. They didn't know anything about him - at most, a couple of the second-years might have seen him around Braun, but passing someone on the way to class didn't mean they knew him. They didn't know where he was from, or what he'd done before Stanford, or what he'd been like in undergrad, or what mistakes he'd made or things he wished he could take back. That meant he could pick what he wanted these people to know about him...what part of himself he wanted to show them. And this - singing at the top of his lungs with an intense look and occasional grin - was exactly the Blaine he wanted them to know.  
  
Also the Blaine who could get any girl in the room he wanted. That would be great for them to see, if he could manage it.  
  
And oh, he could manage it.  
  
 _Yeah, you really got me now  
You got me so I can't sleep at night_  
  
It took him another couple lines to find the girl in the crowd. She was about halfway back, in the center, watching with the same bemused grin she'd worn earlier. That wouldn't do at all. That was the look the other boys got, the ones she rejected. No - he needed to show her why he was better, why he was worth her time. Why he'd make it worth her while.   
  
There weren't many girls at this party, and she was clearly the most popular - and with good reason. She was gorgeous and looked like she was full of fire, and he loved that in a girl. None of the vacant types who were after an M-R-S degree - no. He wanted a girl who could challenge him, who wouldn't just go for  _every_  guy but who would go for  _him_.  
  
Someone strong. Someone who would keep him strong. That was who he needed to woo tonight. And that stunning girl with the smirk would be just what he needed to keep him from falling into old weaknesses.  
  
 _Yeah, you really got me now  
You got me so I don't know what I'm doing  
Oh yeah, you really got me now  
You got me so I can't sleep at night  
You really got me  
You really got me  
You really got me_  
  
It only took a few seconds to catch her eye this time, and she smiled more genuinely - still not a full-on grin, but much closer to what he wanted than it had been. Perfect.  
  
He broke eye contact to work the crowd, planning on circling back to her later. They were loving him, loving everything he was doing - loving his  _voice_  and his attitude and the impromptu performance in front of a fireplace at the first party of the year- Blaine beamed to himself as he sang.  
  
No matter what else was going on, this was safe. This felt right, like the knots that had been building in him all night were loosening and the icy birds in his stomach were finally put out of their misery instead of flapping around inside him. He could just let go and feel the right things - all the things he didn't know how to feel any other time.   
  
She was beautiful and he was taken with her, and he couldn't say that any other way. What else but music had that kind of power? What else but music could  _transform_  something like that? ...What else but music could make him not sick anymore? Because as long as he was on that stage, just him and the guys behind him playing backup...  
  
 _She don't ever set me free  
I always wanna be by your side  
Girl you really got me now  
You got me so I can't sleep at night_  
  
He was doing fine until his eyes made their way over to the threshold to the kitchen, where Gatsby leaned easily against the door frame, arms crossed over his chest. His smile was easy, like he was enjoying the song - not that Blaine cared - but there was something deeper to it. Just those damn eyes, Blaine told himself sternly. He just happened to have a very intense gaze that made everything seem bigger and fierier and- and-  _sicker_  than it would from anyone else. That was all it was.  
  
Really.  
  
Blaine turned away from the kitchen, trying to put the boy out of his mind. He couldn't - and didn't - need him. Not now. Not with however many drinks were in his system, and an entire room in love with him, and a beautiful girl in front of him, and music pumping through the room...  
  
 _Yeah, you really got me now  
You got me so I don't know what I'm doing  
Oh yeah, you really got me now  
You got me so I can't sleep at night  
You really got me  
You really got me  
You really got me  
Oh lord!_  
  
He danced his way through the break, letting himself live on the notes of the guitar solo and the sounds of the gathered crowd enjoying themselves. The upright bass notes sounded a little out of place against the electric guitar but sent the same vibrations through the floor with each  _bum-bum-ba-bum_. He ran his hand through his hair, tugging the curls free of the gel, feeling so uninhibited as long as the music was playing - as long as he was there on that makeshift stage in front of the fireplace, as long as he could be this person who he wanted to be...let them see his hair. Let them see his curls and his bowtie askew.  
  
He tripped over the base of the mic stand, hands flying out to the side as he caught himself, giggling. He heard a few people in the crowd cheering that he didn't fall, and he stood up with a fist in the air, victorious. It was little things that made a night great, right? Little things like not falling and picking a song they could all rock to...and that gorgeous creature staring at him.  
  
...one of them. Not the other one.  
  
 _She don't ever set me free  
I always wanna be by your side_  
  
He kept staring Blaine's way - he could  _feel_  Gatsby's green eyes boring into him. There was no doubt about it. He stole a glance in the direction of the kitchen, and surely enough the man was watching him with the same kind of fierce interest he'd seen earlier. Even the momentary meeting of their eyes sent a shiver through him, and that made him feel queasy - but not nearly as queasy as before. It was hard to feel queasy with alcohol...until there was too much alcohol and he got  _too_  queasy.   
  
But Blaine had gotten good at knowing his limits, and he turned toward the girl again, using his best showman face to ratchet up the intensity, even as he emphasized the most important word of the lyric in his mind.  
  
 _Girl  you really got me now  
You got me so I can't sleep at night_  
  
Her smile was still more bemused than he would have liked. He didn't want a 'nice try, you're cute' face, he wanted a 'yes, that's what I want in a man' kind of face and so far she seemed unconvinced. But even if speaking to her would have left him lost, singing was another story entirely. He poured everything he had into it, and never had he been more excited to hear a decent portion of the room joining in on the last set of harmonies. God, he loved music majors. He loved people who knew what harmonies contributed to a song - and how much they helped elevate the music, how they pushed the feeling higher and higher until it filled the entire room and transcended four guys with makeshift instrumentation and a microphone.  
  
 _Yeah, you really got me now  
You got me so I don't know what I'm doing  
Oh yeah, you really got me now  
You got me so I can't sleep at night_  
  
Looping the microphone out of the stand with a well-practiced motion, Blaine hopped off the hearth and waded into the crowd; the guys separated as he made his way to the girl. Now he could feel everyone's gaze on him - not just Gatsby's; every boy in that room wanted her, and they wanted to know what she would would do when put on the spot like that. Blaine was undeterred and let the pressure fuel him, singing his heart out as he stared into her eyes, letting himself feel the music and the words - she had him. She had him and would leave him crazy and unable to sleep if she didn't say yes, and if he could just sing it a little harder, mean it a little bit more-  
  
 _You really got me_  
  
Her smirk gave way to a smile, then to a grin with a roll of her eyes like she couldn't believe she was doing this. Blaine held out his hand, inviting her, practically begging her with his eyes to say yes - to be his for the night, to give him a needed distraction, to save him from the man with the penetrating gaze and the too-tight shirt. He would make it worth it, he swore silently, if she just said yes-  
  
 _You really got me_  
  
She shook her head but kept grinning, setting her hand in his with a look that said so clearly 'oh, you think you're so charming, don't you?'  
  
But she had to think it, at least a little, if she was agreeing, didn't she?   
  
Blaine beamed, handing the microphone over to the first person he saw, leading her back through the crowd toward the stairs. Even now there was a chance this was all wrong, that she could do something humiliating like reject him or tell him he was a pig and she wasn't that kind of girl - even though all the girls at this kind of party were that kind of girl and he respected them, he swore. But she could say no any second...  
  
She didn't. When he glanced back, she grinned at him and nodded up the stairs.   
  
Hell yes.  
  
He threw his fist up in the air, his other hand firmly in hers, and let out a victorious whoop. The room cheered back at him - happy for his show and more happy for his success with the girl, even if they wanted her too. Knowing the party couldn't possibly have gone any better for him, he hurried up the stairs with his gorgeous companion trailing just behind him, leaving Gatsby behind completely.


	2. Chapter 2

As was almost always the case, the weekend before the first day of classes as proving more eventful than the actual start of the term. Not that Blaine minded; he hated to think of what a professor would have to do to make a day of handing out syllabi and talking about expectations for the course as interesting as a back-to-school bash - or, conversely, how dull a party would have to be to compare negatively to sitting in a lecture hall.  
  
Which wasn't to say he didn't enjoy the educational part of college - he did. And judging from his GPA as well as the flattering letters of recommendation that had secured his place in graduate school, he was good at it, too. Especially at the music courses; there was something at once so fascinating and so  _instinctive_  for him there. There was such a sense of  _liberation_ , even just walking into Braun Hall - even if all he had to do was turn in a form or sign up for a practice room. He wasn't sure why. The large windows that let in California sunlight all day were nice, but if he wanted sun he could just sit outside - one of the many ways that California was better than Ohio, even if he did miss a white Christmas every so often. Snow and ice set a great mood, but who wanted to walk across campus - let alone home at 4 a.m. - in below-freezing temperatures?  
  
So it wasn't just that the building was warm and bright in ways that no music department on the East coast - and definitely in Ohio - could ever be. It had more to do with a feeling of-...it sounded dumb, maybe, but a feeling of kindred spirits being together. And it was  _so_  much better there than in the business building.  
  
_That_  had been an ill-fated semester if ever there was one.  
  
It had started the way all bad things did: with a trip to see his parents for Christmas. Freshman year he had left the travel arrangements until the last minute, not used to having to make the plans himself, and ended up spending the week-long break on an upperclassman's couch; the fellow music major had taken pity on poor Blaine, who was being kicked out of the dorm after finals, couldn't get together the money for a flight home, and didn't have time to wait for a wire or a mailed ticket. The holiday had been awkward because they didn't really know each other, but with two roast turkey dinners fresh from the oven and a tiny tree on top of the tv console, it was the warmest one he'd ever spent. Of course, by the next year that guy had graduated...but Blaine had his own apartment off-campus here, unlike the dorms, he could spend the break watching Christmas specials and wearing comfortable sweaters while sipping hot cider. His parents, however - in particular his father - had other plans. An airline ticket had arrived in October, along with a note in his mother's empty, elegant script on the most formal of her three stationary sets, saying they missed him and expected to see him over break, since he'd been so scarce since moving "out there" and all.  
  
His parents couldn't even say the name of his school; it was that big of an insult, as far as they were concerned.  
  
By the time he returned to campus the day after New Years, he had been so peppered by questions from his father's professional friends and contacts that he was convinced he would never be able to survive on any career in the music field - at least, not without being one of  _those_  children: the overindulged children of  _old_  money types who were despised by all the hardworking, suit-clad professional men in his parents' social circle. The type of child who remained dependent on familial assets and attempted leisurely pursuits instead of contributing to the family's burgeoning legacy. So he had tried his hand at being a business major.  
  
Never again. Just- never again.  
  
Blaine took a moment to bask in the warm afternoon fun as he walked from the student center toward his last class of the day. So far it seemed like the education-centered courses would be a bit outside his comfort zone...at least whenever he had to teach or demonstrate something that wasn't particular to music. Judging from his syllabus, he should be able to focus on his teaching skills on his preferred subject - and of course there were plenty of advanced music courses to balance things out-  
  
"You were great on Saturday."  
  
Blaine stopped, the praise coming seemingly out of nowhere. Smiling to cover his confusion, he turned toward the source, appreciation on his lips. Even if he never quite got used to people he'd never met feeling like they knew him - really knew him - he loved how seemingly everyone on-campus had heard him sing. His smile faded as he saw who was paying him the compliment.  
  
He wanted to say he noticed the fedora first - black, wide-brimmed, it would be an easy thing to pick out at a quick glance. But his height, or lack thereof, was a distinct disadvantage as he found himself eye-level with a pair of thin pink lips. As the mouth curled into a smile that seemed far too fond for Blaine's liking, he jerked his head up sharply. He wasn't comforted by the fact that the green eyes held even more amused familiarity than the grin. He tilted his head up further until this eyes settled firmly on the line of stitching around the brim of the black hat.  
  
"Wow, you were more gone than I realized," Gatsby laughed when Blaine didn't say anything -  _couldn't_  say anything. "You were great anyway. I'm Peter - I was watching from the kitchen."  
  
Funny, Blaine thought; "Gatsby" suited him better. He was more dressed up today than on Saturday night. His grey tweedy wool plants had long, wide legs but still somehow didn't make him look short. Maybe it was the stark crease that ran all the way to his black, shiny, pointed shoes. The waistband was wide enough for three buttons and sat high around Peter's midsection. On top, he wore a sweater vest that was so light grey in colour it almost looked white, tucked into his pants. Beneath his vest was a shirt with the most peculiar cuffs and collar Blaine had ever seen: rounded at the corners, like a girl's Peter Pan collar, only much bolder than the unobtrusive feminine shape he was used to. These were sturdy - stiff and starched; the collar stood up high on his neck before slanting down low around his grey and red tie, and the cuffs turned back against the buttoned base of the sleeve at an angle, sticking out slightly to form almost a cone around Peter's wrist. That no cufflinks held the fabric in place made the entire shirt even more peculiar.  
  
And, of course, the fedora.  
  
"I promise, I didn't follow you or anything," Peter said, grinning wide, and Blaine returned the smile warily. "I just saw you and wanted to say nice job - in all my years of even the best pub crawls, I haven't seen anyone woo a woman in song so well. Especially for how drunk you must have been if you're looking at me like you have no idea who I am." Peter prattled on like a busybody neighbour on some tv series, and it was off-putting coming from someone whose appearance was so put-together - eccentric, certainly, but intentional and clearly thought out. But for how quick his speech was, it didn't seem nervous at all - remarkable to Blaine, who felt like he could barely breathe or swallow.  
  
It wasn't that Peter was the kind of person who would make everyone around him uncomfortable. He was clearly trying to be cheery and friendly. He was just terrifying. The feelings he produced- they never ended well. Blaine certainly didn't need any more indication that the fluttering in his stomach was the wrong response. But then when Peter grinned at him- the quiver inside him became a jump, a swoop, a  _clench_  - he swallowed hard and tried to return the smile, but he could feel how wobbly it was.  
  
"I remember you," he replied, and Peter lit up like a Christmas tree - maybe one Al Capone would have, he guessed, but no less bright. There was an eagerness about the man formerly called Gatsby, an earnest quality at even the awkward conversation that felt-  
  
Oh god.  
  
The thought hit Blaine suddenly, seemingly out of the clear blue sky. What if Peter was happy to see him again - and happier still to be remembered - because he  _liked_ \- Because he was one of  _them_? If he was sick and thought-  
  
_No_ , Blaine reassured himself quickly. Peter was just friendly. There was absolutely no reason to believe that just because a male was a little eccentric, that he was deranged and would need to spend the rest of his life...even if Kurt had been. Even if his father swore up and down that they all were like that because anyone who wasn't crazy would just fit in like every other member of society. It took a truly sick person to stand out so blatantly, and anyone who didn't have to, wouldn't. Anyone who could control himself, would. Anyone who was a healthy, well-adjusted man would just live up to what society needed him to be. They would put away the strange hats and oddly-styled jackets and- and  _bowties_  - and interact with people normally, without craving attention and praise. And until those changes were made...well. The man was still choosing to remain unwell, then, wasn't he?  
  
Whether Peter was sick or not - or whether he, like so many other poor, retched souls, had no idea how ill he really was - didn't matter nearly as much as the fact that he made  _Blaine_  sick. with his easy, eager smile and piercing eyes and intriguing ability to wear a fedora well, he created such an undeniable curiosity that Blaine knew the dangers of all too intimately. Peter might not have a malady of his own, but Blaine  _did_ , and he couldn't be around people who made those revolting symptoms come back. Not when he'd worked so hard over the past four years.  
  
But how exactly was he meant to leave? Point behind Peter and hope the young man was as gullible as he was well-styled? Excuse himself for no discernible reason in the middle of Peter's easy chatter? Wait until he came up or air and say he needed to get to class? That option seemed least impolite, at least. Of course, that meant that until Peter reached a natural stopping point, Blaine was forced to stay and watch him.  
  
"I thought Janie was bonkers, asking me to a party where everyone else is in class together but me, but she says now that I'm back in the country I need to meet people again. I have to say, for how warm of a welcome I received, if I had the talent I'd move over to Music with the rest of you." Blaine wasn't sure how to tell him that the welcome hadn't been  _all_  warm. He didn't know how to break it to Peter that at least part of the room thought he was downright strange, and at least one guy thought- But Peter didn't give him an opportunity, adding, "I'm in the Classics department. Doctoral candidate." He paused, clearly wanting Blaine to jump in, but he didn't know what precisely to say.  
  
"Classics," he repeated awkwardly.  
  
"Basically it means I've learned every dead language a person can...and I irritate fraternity members by pointing out that their letters - and togas - are wrong."  
  
Blaine wasn't sure why that put him at ease for a moment, like Peter was in on the joke of his own oddity. He knew people - at least a few of them - thought the guy in front of him was annoying and strange for whatever the story was with that toga party. Maybe he knew what people said about him, too, and at least that took Blaine out of the unenviable position of having to break it to Peter that people were saying things about him.  
  
Not that it made the guy any less troublesome, Blaine reminded himself as he shifted uncomfortably, crossing his arms stiffly over his chest. It just meant that Peter knew people thought he was sick and dangerous and chose not to do anything about it. His father would have plenty to say about a boy like that; Blaine was sure because he had heard it all before, more times than he could count.  
  
"I have to get to class," he offered stiffly, then so that he wouldn't be rude added, "It was nice running into you again." It was the opposite of nice; it was  _gruesome_. It as agonizing in ways he couldn't put words to but that made him want to crawl out of his skin or- or destroy things, to feel his fists smashing hard against something. Not against someone's face - that would be cruel, but something he could beat and break so he could look at it and see something that was destroyed, damaged, unfixable...and that something wasn't  _him_.  
  
Homosexuals were violent as well as more generally disturbed, his father would take the opportunity to interject dryly, disinterested, like it was a fact on Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom. Like it had nothing to do with what the poor men felt, how they felt every bit as worthy of an asylum as the men who treated them might have suggested decades ago. They weren't in asylums anymore. It was all a lot less gothic and more medicinal, aimed at giving hope - hope of a cure Blaine was struggling so hard to maintain.  
  
"Nice to see you again- I'm sorry, I didn't get your name."  
  
Everything in Blaine told him to just walk away, to end this now before Peter could know him or find him - or, worse, find his secret. But that would be unspeakably rude... "Blaine. Anderson," he replied, shifting from one foot to the other. Peter flashed a wide, gleaming grin and extended his hand, which Blaine shook very stiffly.  
  
His hand was broad, warm, with sturdy fingers, and the simple squeeze of a palm against his own sent an agonizingly painful twinge through him so suddenly that a gasp got stuck in his chest, and Blaine worried he might choke.  
  
Peter had no idea. He never would, Blaine assured himself with a tiny amount o pride, as though being exceptional at hiding his misery was an adequate consolation for being miserable in the first place. As long as the man never knew how Blaine felt, everything would be okay because he couldn't do anything. if Peter knew...none of the options were really attractive.  
  
"Nice to formally meet you, Blaine Anderson. I'll see you around campus - or whatever party Janie drags me to next." And then, in a flash of white teeth and off-grey sweater vest, Peter and his fedora were gone.  
  
Frustrated with himself for engaging at all, Blaine let out a quiet sigh and trudged down the sidewalk and into Braun. After pulling his schedule card from his pocket to verify the room number, he ducked into the stairwell and up to the second floor, hoping to snag a seat by the window. At least there he could reap the benefits of his favourite building. He made it as far as the door when he froze.  
  
There she was.  
  
He racked his brain for a moment to remember her name -  _Lillian._  Right. A beautiful name. She was just as beautiful bathed in the bright afternoon sunlight as she had been in the living room the other night - and in the moondrenched bedroom upstairs. That wasn't the problem at all. It was just-  
  
She was gorgeous - stunning, really. And she was laughing with her friend, face lit up, and obviously she loved and understood music, and he should have wanted to ask her to go out on Friday night so they could get to know each other more... _properly._  there was absolutely no reason not to want to sit near her and use his smoothest lines and songs. He wasn't like those guys who thought dating was for suckers now that college girls were liberated. The idea of a steady was so perfect that he  _ached_  for it, and Lillian would have been a great place to start.  
  
Instead, he found himself wondering where exactly a person found a fedora around here, let alone two.  
  
When she looked up and caught his eye, he wondered if there would ever be a cure that could get him through even a single day without feeling nauseous. He forced a grin and quickly made his way to a seat by the window.  
  
* * * * *  
  
After an exhausting and too-dramatic afternoon, the sense of relief that washed over Blaine as he walked into rehearsal at exactly three minutes before 6 was overwhelming. He could feel the stiffness between his shoulder blades melt away and he stood taller, bouncing a little on the balls of his feet as he walked. The ache in his cheeks from trying to force a smile intensified for a moment as he grinned, and he could feel the tension dissipate slowly as the muscles got used to the new-again movement of actual displays of happiness. But most importantly, the tight bands that had been tied across his chest for too long fell away as quickly as if they'd been cut, and Blaine drew in a gloriously full breath. As he exhaled slowly, he could feel the rest of his body settling into a state that was half-relaxed and half amped-up for the rehearsal. After so much tension, the ability to breathe again -  _really_  breathe - left him euphoric.  
  
The room wasn't full yet, but "college time" tended to run late anyway, so Blaine wasn't surprised. There were enough Mendicants there already to reassure him that enough members from the previous year were still dedicated to the fledgling group. Though he had been worried over the summer, it looked like their future should be secured, at least for now.  
  
"Hey, old man!" Jerry called, grinning from ear to ear. "We were just saying we thought maybe your day was too full - and you'd need to get off campus in time for the early bird special."  
  
Coming from anyone else, it might have sounded cruel, like Blaine was overstaying his welcome. Most groups on campus were for the undergraduates, even if higher-degree candidates weren't barred from joining. But back in May, when he had accepted his place in the Masters program after months of hemming and hawing, Jerry as much as anyone had urged Blaine to stay. Only two of the founding mendicants had experience in a cappella groups, he'd pointed out, and both were graduated. They should at least keep the one staying at Stanford for as long as they could. With Hank gone, Jerry pointed out, Blaine was the only one who knew what the hell they were doing.  
  
He'd found the Mendicants by pure luck. Hank had been a Whiffenpoof when he was at Yale, and after he transferred he had been alarmed to find that a cappella groups didn't exist outside of New England - not even at their self-appointed "West Coast Ivy." When he started gathering fellows to join him, naturally he started with music majors and got John to join, who just happened to be talking about it as Blaine walked into their shared Advanced Piano class. Blaine's ears had perked up immediately at the words "a cappella" and he had - he was ashamed to admit - been uncomfortably close to begging John to let him crash rehearsal. Luckily for him, Hank had still been trying to find people, and he had been so glad to find someone else - anyone else - who had been part of a group like this before...  
  
It wasn't the Warblers, sadly. In some ways, they were undeniably better. Musically speaking, the Mendicants were leaps and bounds beyond 18 high schoolers, some of whose voices had barely dropped. The repertoire, on the other hand, left something to be desired. Hank's songs came straight from the Whiffenpoof's' songbook, and while Blaine was sure Wes would appreciate the history lessons of it all, Blaine was used to something a little more upbeat than Ivy League standards from the turn of the century.  
  
Music needed to be fun. It needed to be a release of everything, otherwise...  
  
...Well, otherwise what did he have?  
  
"You know you'd miss him," Fitz joked from over by the piano where he seemed to be studying homework of some kind intensely.  
  
There was something about joking around like this that always felt uncomfortably fake. Phony. Bravado beyond what he could easily handle without a song to get him in the right mindset. He liked these guys - he genuinely did. They were cool and had a lot more fun than a bunch of boys in blazers, that was for sure. When they were all singing together, they felt like the brothers he'd never had - even like the fraternity he'd never pledged. But joking off the cuff like this was so...He hated to say  _dangerous_. That was melodramatic and not really true. But none of it was  _easy_  for him, not the way it looked when others did it. Not the way singing was.   
  
It had been that way with the Warblers, too, he always reminded himself. When they were singing, he was at the center of everything; when they hung out outside the Commons, going into town - anything out of uniform, certainly - it felt like he faded to the edge of the circle. But he needed to try anyway. He  _wanted_  to try; he  _wanted_  these guys to like him the way all of campus could. And maybe when he stopped singing, they could like him too. So he smirked and replied with exactly what the lead singer of the hottest group on campus would say: "You'd miss the girls I bring in, that's for sure."  
  
The line wasn't perfect, but it worked: the room erupted into laughter. Blaine grinned, relaxing a little more, especially when the foreseeable competitive banter followed: Whether they could get girls without Blaine (probably not, but no one would admit to it), whether basses got more girls than tenors (they did), whether girls even knew what baritones were (outside the music department, no; music majors would slap them for even asking such an insulting question). But the ultimate unifying question came from Ted, a gangly second tenor who had never said much the previous year because he didn't get along so well with Hank but liked the music too much to quit:  
  
"Does it even  _matter_  who gets girls?"  
  
There was a stunned silence as the Mendicants looked at each other, confused. Of course it mattered. In a lot of ways, it was the whole  _point_. There were plenty of places a guy could go at Stanford if he just wanted to sing, especially for students majoring or minoring in music of some kind, but performing for rooms of screaming girls was something only the Mendicants could manage. That reputation - and proven record to back it up - was how they had gotten half their members, especially after their first performance.  
  
The first Mendicants performance was legendary at Stanford - though seeing as how it had occurred less than a year prior, perhaps "infamous" was more accurate. A group of boys - Blaine thought he remembered it being about eight, but everyone tried to claim they'd been at the first impromptu show so he couldn't remember for sure - had marched into the dining hall of the girls' dorm and serenaded the hundred or so girls with the song Hank had taught them: "Ride the Chariot." The audience had loved it; Blaine swore a few swooned as he looked at them...And when the song ended, they wanted  _more_. Of course, the only problem was that they only  _knew_  one song. With the Warblers, Blaine could have improved something - much to Wes's horror - but not with a brand new group like this, especially since none of them but he and Hank had ever sung a cappella before. So naturally, with girls blocking the exit, they did the only thing a group of boys desperate for the attention of women could reasonably do: they fled out the window, sprinting across campus toward a practice room so they could learn another song.   
  
That was the part Blaine really remembered - running across campus as fast as he could, shoes slipping on the wet grass, beaming and laughing and panting, so eager to do that again as soon as possible because he felt so  _alive_. He felt like a Beatle outrunning a mob of crazed fans, and it was the most invigorating thing he'd felt in years.  
  
He didn't feel sick that day. For the first time in as long as he could remember, he didn't want to crawl out of his own skin and be someone else - anyone else - for awhile. He felt perfect.  _Invincible._  
  
Of course it mattered who attracted women to the Mendicants. Otherwise they could be part of any other singing group.   
  
"We should get started," Fitz suggested, glancing at his watch. At ten minutes past the time it should have started, and with at least a few members having evening classes or jobs, they couldn't debate the relative merits of womanizing potential by section all night. Thank God.  
  
The group gathered chairs, sitting in a rough circle out of habit; Hank had always liked it, and Blaine had to agree that it was a good way to hold a meeting. If the Mendicants were going to be an egalitarian group instead of a mini-republic with an elected council, it did kind of add to the air of brotherhood Blaine really enjoyed within the group.  
  
But no one spoke. Fourteen young men looked around the circle at one another, knowing the group meeting needed to start; no one knew how to start it. It didn't take long for Blaine to realize that the looks were no longer circling from one boy to the next. Thirteen pairs of eyes all focused instead on  _him_.  
  
Blaine drew in a deep breath and sat up straighter, trying to harness his enthusiasm as he said, "I'm really excited about this year. We had a great start last spring, and I can't wait to get started."  
  
"So what do you think we should sing?" Ted asked, and a chorus of agreeing murmurs joined in.  
  
Blaine looked around the circle, confused. "Isn't that something the group should figure out?" he asked.  
  
"Please say no more ancient New England hymns," Jerry pleaded.  
  
"What else is there?" Tommy asked. He was one of the youngest in the group and had been known around the department as "The Gilbert and Sullivan Kid" before joining the Mendicants because his great lyric baritone voice made him the go-to star of every local production.  
  
"Barbershop," someone suggested just as another voice piped up "Doo wop." As the circle was starting to descend into cacophony, someone brought the group back to the real question. "What do you think, Blaine?"  
  
"Shouldn't this be a decision for-"  
  
"Why?" Ted asked. "You're the one with experience. You're the lead singer anyway. So why shouldn't you pick?"  
  
Blaine perked up as, judging from the reactions around the circle, everyone agreed. They knew he knew what he was doing, and they trusted him. They  _respected_  him. He couldn't help but grin at that. 'Do you think it's a problem that I'm a graduate student? You guys are technically an undergraduate group."  
  
"You've been in a group before, and you know how to arrange songs practically on the spot," Jerry pointed out. "That's why we let you stay in the first place."  
  
"If you ask me, you should have been the leader last year instead of Hank," Ted grumbled. "But his group, his rules."  
  
Blaine grinned, sitting up straighter. "In that case," he began, taking his new role very seriously. He had to; the leader of a group, especially such a young group, had to be able to steer the group with confidence and do what was best for them as a whole. They needed to have confidence in him and rely on him, and both of those would be easier if he was clearly not playing around with the group and their time. "I think we need to update our song selection. I don't mean everything has to come from last year's Billboard charts, but audiences like upbeat numbers they know. There's so much out there right now with great harmonies that it seems like a shame not to devote at least some of our repertoire to current music."  
  
"Like what?"  
  
There were so many songs he remembered performing as a Warbler, but none of them were memorable for the point he'd been trying to make. He remembered being talked into a duet on a song that was all about finding a place together - and the audience loving it for reasons that he couldn't fathom in retrospect. Hell, in retrospect he wasn't sure how they hadn't been booed offstage. It was Ohio, after all. The Warblers had been so naive back then.  _He_  had been- Anyway. He remembered a duet he'd pulled out of after falling prey to his illness, after doing the most unspeakable thing - the one that made his case so much more  _severe_  even if he regretted it immediately and tried to get away. He remembered leading solos and wanting to turn to see the boy dancing behind him because his case was so unmanageable at the time. And mostly, more than any other song, he remembered the one he had performed the first time he met the boy who had almost ruined his life.  
  
He liked to tell himself that he hadn't given much thought to Kurt before he sang "Over the Rainbow." It was so much easier to blame everything on a song by one of his favourite singers of all time. But he'd noticed him before. He'd noticed him immediately - who wouldn't? Nevermind the way he dressed that made him stand out in any crowd, his strong presence - his  _eyes_ -  
  
Blaine swallowed hard, trying to shake the memory. He'd fled to the other side of the country to get out of the boy's clutches, the least Kurt could do was stay out of Blaine's head.  
  
He forced a brighter, more enthusiastic grin, wondering if at some point his face might just crack into a million tiny pieces and shatter, or snap like a rubber band that had been pulled too tight and too far for too long. "My senior year, we won with Rama Lama Ding Dong. And Little Bitty Pretty One. The crowd loved them both."  
  
"We should do Beach Boys," Jerry suggested. "They have bad harmonies."  
  
"You just say that because you're a first tenor," Tommy shot back. "What about Doo Wah Diddy? That already sounds like backup lyrics."  
  
Blaine grabbed his notebook to jot down the suggestions. "Those would be great. Beach Boys might be a good thing to start with because they might not sound as good at Christmas."  
  
"You know what song has a terrific background part and a fun bass line?" Craig asked rhetorically. He was one of the boys Blaine didn't know well - art department, not part of the usual party crowd, but he was usually the first of the low-voiced Mendicants to know his part. "Be My Baby."  
  
There was silence for a long moment as the boys of the circle looked at Craig with a mix of confusion, disdain, and discomfort. "It's a girl song, dude," Fitz pointed out.  
  
"So? We can take it down the octave. It wouldn't be hard to learn, and we wouldn't lose movement without the drums," Craig pointed out. "It'd sound fantastic, and I bet we could have it ready by next week. Beach Boys will take longer to learn."  
  
"We can't do a girl song!"  
  
"Why not?" Craig asked, crossing his arms over his chest.  
  
"Girls won't like it," Fitz pointed out.  
  
"Of course they will. They love that song."  
  
"When  _girls_  sing it," Jerry replied forcefully. "When we do it, it'll just be  _fruity_."  
  
Blaine winced but recovered quickly, and he saw eyes begin to turn to him again. As appointed leader in the group, it was his job to settle this, wasn't it? But who exactly was he supposed to decide such a thing? On one hand, he did think it would be an easy song to arrange and learn - a quick but impressive number to start out the year and let the group reconnect to one another. But at the same time...the one thing the Mendicants really had going for them - the thing they really brought Blaine... What if Fitz and the others were right? What if girls thought a bunch of boys shouldn't sing girl songs?  
  
It was more than that, though, more than just wanting to be sure he still had a supply of girls ready to swoon at his feet. Relating to women's songs was a sign of inversion - one of his own strongest and most pronounced symptoms that he could never quite write off as just loving all kinds of music including the quarter by girls. It wasn't merely fruity, it was  _sick_. It was part of the pathology that he could never quite cure and reminded him of the voice he could never escape. The voice that sang Judy Garland so mournfully, that hit notes that took Blaine's breath away, that whispered his name just before they kissed, breathy against his lips-  
  
He couldn't drag the rest of the group into that, no matter how good the Ronettes were on their musical merits. The three girls and Phil Specter's Wall of Sound weren't harmless for him - or for them. He needed to protect his groupmates as much as he could, and not just their reputations or getting sorority girls into their beds. The last thing he wanted to do was infect them with his sickness, to make them susceptible to all the problems... He suffered enough for them all.  
  
"Let's start with the Beach Boys," he suggested, his tone definitive but casual, hiding all the turmoil of his decision behind a faint smile. "It'll be a crowd pleaser. Get everyone in a good mood even though summer's over."  
  
The biggest perk of being a trusted leader, he discovered, was that the discussion ended there, with the Ronettes nowhere near their repertoire.  
  
* * * * *  
  
By the time Blaine headed home for the night, he was completely exhausted. Practice had gone great - they were well on their way to learning their first number of the year, and they had a list of songs to start soon. He would begin working on arrangements tomorrow. For now, he had plenty of work to do already.  
  
He stepped into his dark apartment and walked blindly over to his desk, letting his bag slip off his shoulder and onto the floor with a resounding thud as he reached to flick on the desk lamp. The illumination didn't reach far - just beyond the edge of the worn-out wooden desk and threadbare chair, but Blaine didn't mind; what else did he need to see?  
  
Tugging his bowtie and collar open, Blaine stepped over to the kitchen area. Really it was no more than a sink, a small stovetop, and a tiny refrigerator against the wall closest to the door, but it was enough for him. The entire one-room apartment was built for a student who spent most of his time on campus and most of his money on beer, so that certainly seemed to fit the bill. He opened the fridge and leaned down to snag a cold bottle from the bottom shelf. Grabbing the bottle opener from its constant place on the square foot of counter space to the right of the fridge, he flicked the cap of easily and lifted the beer to his lips, groaning a little as the cool liquid filled his mouth. He moved back over to the desk and toed off his shoes as he sat down. It was difficult to find a place for his beer on the desk, the reddish brown wood surface already covered in bottles of varying ages and brands, save a horseshoe of workspace exactly the right size for a notebook. Blaine hesitated, looking for a better place, then simply nudged a few of the empties aside with the butt of his fresh drink, settling the bottle down at the edge of the nest of bottles. With a faint smile of satisfaction, Blaine reached down and tugged his satchel flap open. He rifled around until his fingers closed around the spine of a book, and he pulled it out to start his homework. Judging from the syllabi he'd gotten so far, it seemed like this year would have fewer assignments to turn in or exams to take, but a lot more to read.  
  
After two hours of reading and as many beers, Blaine set down his book, leaning back and closing his eyes. He couldn't focus. Maybe he was just tired - he was done with three classes worth of reading, after all, and he felt like his eyes were starting to cross. And it had been a long day anyway...maybe he was hungry. Most of the Mendicants had gone out to grab dinner after rehearsal, but he couldn't. He claimed he had too much to do - which was mostly true, but homework had never stopped him from enjoying himself when he wanted to. Really he just didn't have the energy - not tonight. Not after spending all afternoon feeling sick and all evening feeling responsible for protecting the reputation and well-being of the entire group.  
  
It wasn't that he minded being the group leader. He was glad they trusted him so much, and it was flattering - and, of course, he loved being a major soloist. He loved being able to sing his heart out with a dozen guys supporting him. But helping keep them all on track and together when he could barely keep himself out of trouble seemed like an unfairly tall order.  
  
Even taller than Peter plus his fedora.  
  
Blaine sighed dejectedly as the man shoved his way back into Blaine's thoughts despite being so clearly unwelcome. The first step in treating his malady was to not let boys linger on his mind; that as always the first real sign of a relapse. Well, that and the dreams, but he couldn't control those. Even deep hypnosis didn't work on dreams, so he'd come to terms with some of those being less-healthy than he wanted. But the conscious thoughts during his waking hours...that was what made him sick, if he didn't get rid of them.  
  
He'd been doing so well.  
  
Not  _perfect_ , not where he wanted to be, but so well. He had been able to tear his gaze away - mostly - and not get that fluttery feeling - much...at least, not while they booze was flowing freely at a great party - and he could talk to boys without wanting- well, sometimes, and maybe that was just because he tended not to talk to boys about anything but music. Though he didn't really  _talk_  to girls, either, he mostly just sang to them and touched them. But at least he had kept from doing either of those things to boys...for awhile anyway. Since his- how would his father put it? His severe manifestation of illness and inversion?  
  
Just once he wanted those damned euphemisms out of his head. Just once he didn't need a running commentary of everything that was wrong with him while he warred against the perversions with all his might. He just wanted quiet in his head or once - for one day. Just one day of feeling normal and healthy and like maybe he wasn't going to be miserable forever.  
  
He'd never made it a day. But he'd gotten a few hours' peace at a time on occasion. Given the right combination of a great party, with his favourite music, and a pretty girl flirting with him, and four or six drinks...the noise and urges could fade away, and he could imagine a life or himself: A small house, somewhere on a friendly street, with a yard and plenty of space for kids. Somewhere that looked lived-in, with a wife who greeted him with something simple but delicious for dinner - roasted chicken, no squab or cornish game hen. Pot roast. Spaghetti. Things families ate. And or just a few minutes, he could be drunk enough to imagine a fantasyland in which his father came on the weekends and saw how happy he was and was... _proud_  of him.  
  
But it wasn't real, and he doubted it ever would be. In any event, he wasn't drunk enough to get there tonight; it was too late, and he was just so tired.  
  
It was too quiet, he concluded, setting his beer in the center of his desk. Moving over to the bed, he pulled out the most used object in his apartment - the enormous box of albums. Even in practically no lights and with a few drinks blurring his vision just a little around the edges, it was easy to find what he wanted. He pulled the  **[45](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FyM8NVl4yBY)**  from its sleeve and put it on the turntable. As the familiar vamp started, Blaine leaned over to snag the half-empty bottle from the desk and laid on his back across the bed, staring up at the ceiling and mouthing along, too emotionally drained to even sing.  
  
_Oh yes, I'm the great pretender_  
Pretending that I'm feeling well  
My need is such  
I pretend too much  
I'm lonely but no one can tell.  
  
At least he wasn't the only one who felt that way. Unfortunately that didn't do him much good; the song neither gave him a solution nor made him feel enough better to live with himself. But at least it was a song by another man. It was a small consolation, but it helped him feel a little less sick for a moment. Knowing he had to take what he could get tonight, he nudged the mostly-empty bottle into place on top of his nightstand; it was even more full than the desktop, and he smiled faintly in victory as no older bottles or cups were sent clattering to the floor. That took skill, and it happened to be a skill he had. He flopped over onto his stomach, letting the combination of alcohol and exhaustion overtake him.  
  
Maybe tomorrow would be better. He doubted it, but what else could he do?


	3. Chapter 3

By the time the weekend rolled around, Blaine couldn’t have been happier to see it. After a week of what felt like nonstop reading for classes and waking up every night with nightmares of being chased by every conceivable boogieman, he was more exhausted than he could remember being in awhile. To say nothing of his mother - he couldn't even start to think about that very much. Usually rehearsals would at least be a great way to recuperate no matter how high his stress level, to regain some energy and focus, but it turned out that teaching the Mendicants an arrangement was more difficult than he’d expected. The basses had their line down, but when it came time to add a plinky overtone, Matt kept jumping the gun on the rhythm and came in every single time on “and a” instead of “a one”, which threw off the rest of the two-bar phrase. Hank would have pulled Matt aside, but Blaine wasn’t sure exactly what to say other than to be encouraging that Matt could get the very simple part eventually.  
  
Friday had been particularly exhausting. To celebrate his first semester with a light Friday schedule, he had gone out with a group of guys in his Theories of Education class – really fun guys, from what he could remember which was admittedly not very much. He knew at some point he had gotten home and into bed, if only because he remembered clearly waking up on Friday morning feeling like death. His stomach roiled from before the moment he even opened his eyes, blinking gingerly as it felt like they had been wrung out like an old washcloth – twisted and too dry. His head throbbed, and as he swung his heavy limbs over the edge of the bed and tried to sit up he swore he was going to throw up violently all over the rug; how he managed to keep the contents of his stomach down was still a mystery by the time he stood.  
  
It wasn’t the worst he’d ever felt, he knew that. For one thing, it was hard to beat Larry’s end of the year bash from two years ago, which remained – even in his memory – an agonizing experience. A week of not eating right because finals had consumed his schedule, followed by nine hours of drinking…and someone – maybe him, he had to admit, that part of the evening was pretty hazy – had come up with the idea of doing an hourly drink schedule to force variety into the drink selection. At the start of every hour, one person would pick a liquor and that was all that would pour until the next hour began. Benny’s Jagermeister hour hadn’t gone well for him. After that night – and the next two days – anything seemed not-so-bad by comparison. Still, dragging himself through music classes hungover – while habitual – was never fun. Trying to sing like Brian Wilson at rehearsal was more like agonizing.  
  
Perhaps the oddest moment of Friday, though, had been reaching into his bag for his notebook and pulling out two scraps of paper – one with a phone number, another with an address written in elegant-looking cursive that was more reminiscent of his mother or one of her society-wife friends than a college girl. He had no memory of the girls who had given them to him, let alone who would have been so forward as to give him her  _address_. That was the kind of thing even a fun-loving college girl would think was beneath her. He liked to think he would have remembered making use of the address, but he couldn’t even be sure of that considering he didn’t exactly remember getting home on Thursday night. And were he to be honest, he couldn’t guarantee either of those slips hadn’t been in his bag since last year, so tracking down the authors would be virtually impossible. He imagined a Cinderella scenario, having every girl write a phone number and address until he could match the handwriting, but the phone number looked like the writing of practically every girl on campus. While he didn’t doubt that would be a great way to get a lot of dates, especially if he laid on the charm, it mostly perplexed him that he couldn’t even remember – he didn’t think he’d been  _that_  drunk.  
  
So after such a long, frustrating,  _exhausting_  Friday, Blaine was ready to kick back and enjoy himself. Luckily for him, it was the best party weekend of the year. Post-finals was a close second, but so many people left campus right after their last exam, so it was more like a week of low-key parties as opposed to a giant blowout.  
  
He started the evening at the Dekes' party - they were closest to his apartment and plenty of good times at Delta Kappa Epsilon bashes in the past. From the moment he stepped inside, though, he knew there would be trouble: close to 100 guys packed the living room, and Blaine counted maybe three women, each tucked very protectively under the arm of the boyfriend who had brought her. Sometimes that could be fine - he didn't  _need_  girls around to have a good time. He'd gone to an all-boys' school, after all, and there were still not nearly as many females on campus as there were males...and he liked the Mendicants a lot. But after a week like this, where he already felt so- "fragile" wasn't quite the word, but perhaps "too easily tempted" fit the bill - it just seemed like a horrible idea to stick around. Parties made it easier to flirt with girls, but there had to be girls around first. Otherwise he tended to fall into old habits of  _wanting_ , and he didn't want to get pulled into something dangerous like that right now. Or ever, really, but it had been such a long week that it seemed like the possibility was lurking this weekend more than most.  
  
Of course, he couldn't just walk in and walk right back out again; that would be really rude. So he snagged himself some punch from the kitchen and made small talk with some of the guys about football for awhile before slipping out the door again and into the warm Palo Alto night. He didn't have to wander far in search of the next house party - a few driveways down, he saw a group of girls chatting on the front lawn as all kinds of people streamed in and out of the front door. He could hear [music](http://youtu.be/cQN-DznKT9U) coming from inside, and through the front window he could see at least a few people dancing in the living room.  
  
Perfect.   
  
Blaine grinned and quickened his step up the front walk and through the open front door. The party was already hopping, which helped him relax a little, and there were plenty of girls around which...felt intimidating right now, he supposed, but would feel like the best thing in the world with a couple more drinks in him. Most of the crowd was younger than him - it was a fraternity party, after all, which meant almost entirely undergrads - but he didn't mind that. He'd had plenty of good times with guys who were still in college, hadn't he?   
  
The inside of the house was more bustling than the front lawn, stuffed to the brim, and Blaine could feel himself relaxing just moving into the crush of people. Just what he wanted out of a Friday night. He squeezed between two groups of boys whose fraternity was hosting - Blaine didn't readily see enough memorabilia on the wall to tell him which group it was - and toward the table in the living room that held an enormous punchbowl. He'd seen a lot of them in his life (his mother owned seven for different types of functions and two more because they had been gits but were too hideous to ever use except when the gifting party was over), but it was easily the largest he'd ever seen. Made of clear plastic that looked dull and somewhat scratched even in the dim light, its red concoction could've been anything, but Blaine was up for a taste. He snagged a cup from the stack and, seeing no ladle (his mother would have fainted), dipped the plastic vessel into the bowl, tilting it upright hen he'd given himself a generous serving. Blaine raised the cup to his lips and took a testing sip; the brightly-coloured punch was strongly fruity but mostly just  _strong_ ; it burned as he swallowed, the heat starting in his throat and radiating out quickly through his chest, arms, stomach. By the time his face flushed warm, he was taking another swig. After the week he'd had - after the  _day_  he'd had...this was just what he needed.  
  
Why shouldn't he get what he needed?  
  
He swallowed hard at his own indignant question, the gulp scorching him faster than he expected. But it was a fair question, wasn't it? he worked so hard, he tried  _so hard_...He wasn't like guys he'd met who had spent too many years back home being pushed and slacked off as soon as their fathers couldn't tel them otherwise. He knew how to have a good time, he wasn't  _always_  serous - he loved the feeling of letting loose...shouldn't he indulge that when he needed to? Why shouldn't he take advantage of being able to feel good - to feel  _free_  and untroubled...when he spent so much of his time trying to do everything right? The Mendicants didn't run themselves, and he enjoyed his classes but there was so much work, and he was under so much pressure to be better all the time...  
  
It was just that he wanted to do everything  _right_ , that was all. He was already so wrong - the wrong career desires, the wrong inclinations to want to ask questions and talk about things, the wrong aspirations...to say nothing of his sickness...  
  
He couldn't change so much. He couldn't let go of those parts of his nature any more than he could change where Stanford was. He couldn't cure himself, no matter how hard he tried. There were so many things he needed that he would never be able to have.  
  
So why shouldn't he give himself this one? Why shouldn't he ease up his own agonizingly heavy burden every once in awhile and let himself feel free and happy? Why shouldn't he be allowed to feel giddy as he watched the room spin, if that was what he needed after battling so hard for the things that would never be his? Why shouldn't he be allowed to blend into the throng of dancing, jubilant bodies bouncing to the music and lose himself - and everything wrong with him at the same time?  
  
Proud of himself for standing his ground in the war against himself, Blaine tipped back the cup and drained it quickly before going back for another cup of punch to drink as he mingled.  
  
* * * * *  
  
Blaine started home more times than he could remember. Of course, by the third cup of punch, that as a very low bar.  
  
He swore he'd decided to leave at least four times, and yet...somehow...Not that he minded, not at all. And what was he going to do at home - read for class? Sleep? That could wait if he was having this much fun. He'd won an impromptu game of beer pong - he didn't know who decided to combine ping pong and drinking, but they were his hero; he was great with a paddle - and maybe an impromptu dance contest? He remembered the other guy quitting and all the guy's friends cheering for him instead. Mostly he remembered spinning as he sang...or was that just the room? He hadn't missed a word, though - he was just that good. The guy's friends rewarded him heartily with a great vodka; he remembered that, too.  
  
But this time, he was really going home. He meant it. It was late, and he should go so he could do... _something_  on Saturday, he couldn't remember what it was but he should definitely do that. And sleep. Fuck, sleep sounded good. Not as good as another song, though - another song surrounded by guys who thought he was fantastic and girl who thought he was the best  _ever_.  
  
He was absolutely doing another number before he went home. If he could find a place to sing it - he wasn't really sure where he was or where the nearest party was. The sidewalk? Yeah, that seemed right...and  _wrong_ , he realized. He shouldn't be there, he should be inside - where the girls were. He turned, lighting up as he saw people having fun up on the porch. That girl was stunning - tanned, blonde hair that didn't exist in Ohio except from a bottle but out here came from the summer sun...he loved California, and that girl was even better - and better still because there were  _two_  of her.   
  
Blaine could tell there were letters above the door that would tell him where he was, but he couldn't read them. He started forward to rejoin the party - or join a new one, maybe, he didn't know - but made it only two steps before he stumbled. He threw his arms out clumsily to try to steady himself and, by some luck and with an awkward flapping motion, righted himself on wobbly legs. He groaned as the entire motion sent the world lurching across his vision, and his stomach churned sharply. He had just enough time - and practice - to lean over slightly before heaving onto the grass. When his stomach partway settled after what felt like an hour but was probably only several minutes, Blaine stood upright. He felt awful - so  _hot_ , when had it gone from warm to sweltering? He swallowed, moaning in disgust at the taste and the way it burned. Water, he concluded. Water would help. And sleep. He took a step to the right to move around the mess he'd made of the lawn and tripped over his feet, falling slowly onto his side with a loud grunt of pain and frustration. That wasn't supposed to happen.  
  
He waited for one of the guys on the porch to notice - or maybe the girl would take pity on him and help nurse him back to health...but they didn't seem to be coming, and he  _was_  pretty tired, so maybe he would just close his eyes for a few minutes...  
  
"Are you okay?" a voice he swore he recognized but couldn't place asked from above him.  
  
Blaine half-opened his eyes, staring at a pair of shoes. Shiny shoes. "Yeah, just...tired," he managed.  
  
"You can't sleep here."  
  
"'m not, dude, I'm going back to the party," he replied - or tried to. His tongue felt heavy and uncooperative in addition to being gross.  
  
"Oh, no, you're not," the voice chuckled dryly. He saw knees now - grey pants - as the guy crouched down. "Warn me before you're sick again, got it? I do not want to think about what the drycleaner would do to this vest."  
  
"Best drycleaner's on University Avenue and-...something. Over there. By the train," Blaine stated helpfully, gesturing until he felt himself being lifted off the ground.  
  
"Where do you live?"  
  
"Why are you-" Blaine glanced up and recoiled as he recognized who had picked him up and disturbed him from his attempt at sleep. Even without a fedora - some weird floppy cap was in its place - and his vision burring in the darkness, he could tell whose arms were around him and hoisting him down the sidewalk. "No. Don't, I can-...'m fine, lemme go..."  
  
"Be quiet and let me be Prince Charming," he joked.  
  
It took Blaine a moment to process that one, and when he did he choked out a tiny noise of protest that sounded more like a kicked puppy than any articulable objection. "No," he tried to protest. "Put me down, I'm  _fine_ -"  
  
"Blaine." Peter's voice was firm, authoritative, but focusing on how he sounded just made Blaine want to get away faster. He was too vulnerable like this, held dangling up so far, legs feeling so weak and heavy, and if he got sick-...or if Peter was  _sick_...  
  
He still wasn't sure, but any man who joked about being a guy's Prince Charming so casually  _had_  to be right? That wasn't the kind of thing guys said to one another after a party - at least no party Blaine had ever been to, and he'd been to them all.   
  
Would it be so bad if Peter were one of them? Blaine wondered fuzzily, a lopsided smile crossing his face as he let himself sag into Peter's hold for a moment. His arms were so strong, his chest broad and warm even through that vest, his heartbeat and breathing so soothing...it just felt so  _nice_. Blaine shook himself from near slumber this time. He felt queasy again, but not from too much punch.  
  
Of course it would be so bad. If Peter were one of  _them_...that would be the worst thing. He was easy prey like this, ready to be forced to-...if there was one thing consistent across all homosexuals, his father swore, it was that they were relentless. They would stop at nothing once they had a young man in their clutches. They had no concept of humanity, of 'stop' or 'no' or niceties like 'please' - not when they ere in a predatory sexual frenzy. They looked for boys and young men who could be taken advantage o easily, and they kept going until they had what they wanted.  
  
He wished he didn't have to count that among his own symptoms. He couldn't remember parties two through four, but he could remember all the reasons-  
  
"Let me down."  
  
"Blaine, where do you live?"  
  
He couldn't tell him. Wouldn't tell him. Because suppose he did- and then what? At least if Peter tried to satisfy some psychotic urge in public, people would see, but at his apartment? What if he-  
  
And what if Blaine  _liked_ -  
  
No matter how violent and hostile Blaine knew it would be, the idea of Peter ripping his clothes off, biceps bulging, green eyes lit up with the knowledge that he was doing whatever he wanted, without fear or consequence...he moaned softly as his eyes dipped shut again. With those broad lips...and firm hands...  
  
Blaine was vaguely aware of Peter saying something, but before he could process what it was he felt himself shift in Peter's arms, the gentle curve of the man's bicep brushing against his own. He was a small guy, but still - Peter had to be strong to do this. He wondered if the man worked out - like in an athletic magazine, maybe, the kind with lean men in bathing suits showing off while positioned in vaguely sporty poses...he'd found one when he was 11 and visiting his father's office. His mother was running some kind of errand, he didn't remember what. He mostly remembered that it was filth, but the men didn't seem to care. They were so handsome and strong...he started to picture one of those men in suspenders and a fedora, but his mind took him a step further, picturing Peter clad in nothing but European swimming clothes, flexing on the beach like Charles Atlas...  
  
He needed to do something to stop the way this was going. He felt too good,  _much_  too good, and he knew it wasn't supposed to. Usually if he could make it feel bad somehow, that helped. But how? It felt so incredible, the way his chest flexed, the heavy sound of his breathing, the smell of his aftershave - musky and sweet...how could this ever feel bad? How could he bring himself to want it to?   
  
He felt a broad hand press against his ass, cupping, grasping along his back pockets- His stomach clenched, and he batted hastily at Peter's chest before leaning over to empty his stomach again. He coughed and sputtered a moment, then slumped back into Peter's arms again weakly before passing out.  
  
* * * * *  
  
The bed beneath his back was soft, familiar, and it was exactly what he wanted. what he didn't want was the discomfort of his shoes being jerked off. He whined indignantly, trying to complain, but the words wouldn't come. He heard his shoes hit the floor and a quiet shushing sound. "You're okay, Blaine, you're fine," Peter murmured as he moved up. Blaine's breath hitched as he felt hands on his belt, and he wasn't able to hep himself as he groaned softly, "S'been years..." he said, part warning and part regret. He didn't know anymore whether he was meant to regret waiting so long or doing it at all. Right now, he mostly just regretted his breath. Maybe it would be enough to scare the man off, but he didn't think he wanted it to. Mostly he just wanted to not feel so tired anymore...or to be allowed to rest. Either would suffice.  
  
He felt Peter's hand cup the back of his neck, lifting his head. Blaine tried to struggle and hep at the same time, but Peter instructed, "Drink this." A cup pressed against his lips seemingly out of nowhere, and Blaine opened his mouth to protest. he wanted to point out that he'd probably had enough now - in fact, he was sure of it. Any time he was so bad off that he let a guy take him home who may or may not be seriously disturbed, and for all Blaine knew could be the most difficult of difficult cases... that meant he should stop. But the cool liquid that poured into his mouth slowly felt out of this world. he winced at the taste, and Peter asked, "Sick again?", already reaching for the wastebasket. Blaine shook his head, lips not leaving the rim of the glass.  
  
He should be asking Peter to leave, he knew that, but he was just too damned  _kind_  about it. That was the way - Homosexuals could be cunning. it as an antisocial disorder, and sociopaths didn't really push people away. They drew them close so they could destroy them. But it felt so  _nice_ , held firmly by sturdy hands while the rest of him felt like he was floating.  
  
Besides, since when did he care about what was a bad idea on a night like this?  
  
That logic was enough for him, and he let himself slip back into the fuzzy darkness.  
  
* * * * *  
  
The first thing Blaine was aware of when he awoke was the agonizingly sharp pain that seemed to encompass his entire head, as though a deranged artist was slowly taking a chisel to his skull and sending an intense ache through his cheeks, his sinuses, his mouth, with every tap of the hammer. The light in the room - what room? he couldn't say - was blinding even before he opened his eyes, and he groaned as he tried to bury his face against the pillow. Even the miniscule movement intensified the pain and made him aware of the exhausted, achy feeling weighing his entire body down against the bed.  
  
At least the bed felt familiar. That was always a good sign when he was this hungover. He hadn't been so bad in awhile. Apparently last night had been great; he could always tell a choice party by how awful he felt the next day. God knew he couldn't remember much of it. Something about a singing and dancing contest that he was pretty sure he'd won. He wondered-...no, it didn't feel like there was anyone else in bed with him. That didn't mean he hadn't been congratulated on his win; to the contrary. He usually was alone by the time he got home. The bed might be colder, but it saved him having to make breakfast when he felt this lousy - or having to make smalltalk at all with some girl he'd liked the night before but now couldn't quite  _like_.  
  
He reached for the nightstand in search of his watch, intent on bringing it to his darker place under the pillow instead of trying to make out the hands on the alarm clock after his pupils exploded like he was sure they were going to do the moment he opened his eyes. His fingers maneuvered expertly between the bottles-  
  
That weren't there. There was nothing on the nightstand.  
  
Blaine twisted his hand to and fro for a moment, confused when his fingers swiped absolutely nothing. usually hovering an inch or two above the wooden tabletop, he would feel at least a few cool-ish glass bottles against each part of his hand, and retrieving the watch would require a delicate extraction to avoid sending four bottles clattering to the floor at a volume that was sure to make him want to curl up and die. He was adept at it; he had mastered hungover dexterity early in his sophomore year. But the knowledge that there was nothing there to risk knocking over was incredibly unsettling.  
  
Blaine forced his eyes open with a grimace and, after blinking a couple times, was confused to see that his nightstand was indeed empty except for his lamp, alarm, and of course his watch - which rested against a single empty beer bottle on top of a square of crisp white paper. He knocked his pillow aside and sat up for a better look. It wasn't just the nightstand that was now cleared of bottles: the desktop held neat stacks of papers and books; on the dresser he saw a row of ties and a pile of hats; even the tiny counterspace in the kitchen had been cleared, leaving about enough space to make a sandwich which was more than he'd had twelve hours earlier. He looked around quickly, trying anxiously to figure out who had been in his apartment. The bed looked mussed, but he didn't know how much of that was from his own sleeping and what might have been caused by someone else. But who got up from sex - assuming that was what had happened, which he kind of had to just because who else would he have invited over - to clean up the apartment of a guy she barely knew?  
  
And how had some other guy on campus not married her yet?  
  
Shouldn't he at least remember a girl like  _that_? He liked to think so.  
  
He reached over to pick up his watch and brought the note with it. In smooth black ink that complemented the elegant script nicely, he read the short message.  
  


> _Blaine -_  
>  You don't have to live like this.  
> -Peter

  
  
Oh God. Was  _that_  who-...no. No. He was drunk, he  _couldn't_  have-  
  
Alcohol made his symptoms  _more_  manageable, not less. That was part of the whole point. It was easier to let himself go and be the way he was supposed to be when he was tipsy. If he'd asked a man- an eccentric, inverse, probably unrepentantly homosexual man - back to his apartment-...  
  
He remembered Peter's hand on his belt, the dark and masculine scent along the man's neck and jaw-...murmuring "Oh  _Blaine_ " with the saddest sigh...  
  
No. No. He hadn't.   
  
He  _hadn't_ , he concluded with a deep sigh of relief. None of what he remembered seemed like he'd committed the worst possible offense. He remembered glasses of water and not falling on the stairs and anything else...well, given how indelibly the previous manifestations of his illness were seared into his memory - especially the most severe ones - he doubted there as enough fruity fraternity punch in all the world to let him forget if he and Peter had done  _that_.  
  
No, what little he could cobble together seemed like Peter had just helped him home, given him water, and cleaned his apartment. That was surprisingly nice of him. Blaine didn't know anyone else at Stanford who would do that if he asked - maybe a junior Mendicant who wanted to impress him in the hopes of getting a solo out of the deal, but beyond that...and Peter didn't even really know him, either. The man must either be just that naturally kind and helpful...or he wanted something, but Blaine had no idea what that would be. Shouldn't Peter have put that in the note or something?  
  
Blaine laid back again as he studied the note. It said so little - hat did Peter even mean by that? The mess? Because while Blaine knew his housekeeping skill shad gotten woefully lax during the past four years, he didn't exactly have anyone to clean up the place  _for_. He knew he  _could_  make his apartment look nice, but that much effort for a nonexistant payoff seemed silly.  
  
Unless...  
  
Blaine's gaze fell on the solitary empty bottle in the center of the nightstand. Funny - it looked so much worse there than it did when there were dozens of bottles around it. By tonight, Blaine was sure there would be at least three more - maybe closer to six. It all depended on the day, the amount of time he had to spend reading, whether he went out - and since it as a Saturday, that really asn't even a question unless he was still sick...which he might be. It wasn't the worst he'd ever felt, but it was close, so maybe...  
  
...Maybe this was what Peter meant.  
  
Mulling over the possibility, Blaine swung his feet over the side of the bed and hauled himself upright. He gave himself a moment to adjust to the dizziness and accompanying nausea - he had the movement down to a science four years in the making. He could also make it to the toilet in fewer than four steps if he needed to - and he often needed to - and he could even fix himself a Bloody Mary practically without opening his eyes. He'd been proud of each skill as he discovered and honed it, but now he found himself wondering for the first time...was it really something he should be proud of? That he woke up hungover on so many mornings that starting himself on the road to recovery was as natural and rote to him as tying his shoes?  
  
Blaine shifted uncomfortably at the sense of lack-of-ease as he padded to the bathroom. He reached blindly for his toothbrush with his right hand and caught sight of his reflection in the mirror. He wouldn't have thought he could look worse than he felt, but he  _did_. His eyes were crusted with sleep, red-rimmed and still a little bloodshot. Of course his hair was a mess, but it managed to seem so much more out of control. Even the thick layer of stubble seemed unruly against his pale cheeks. The bathroom's harsh light cast shadows across his features, emphasizing the bags under his eyes and the slight hollows of his neck. His shirt was askew and dappled with mysterious stains, and his belt hung open from the waistband of his pants. He felt like he'd had a bowtie on the night before but had no idea where it might have ended up.  
  
He looked tired. He felt  _exhausted_.  
  
And for what? When he honestly couldn't remember the night before, what was it  _for_? Losing sleep and regretting things for a great party he could laugh about for years to come was one thing, but this...  
  
Had it always been this bad? Blaine didn't know. He-...he remembered parties being this gateway to a magical world of freedom and chicks and popularity and feeling amazing enough that it made up for the morning after. But as he stood in front of the mirror, staring at someone who looked halfway to a Depression-era photograph of the downtrodden, he had to ask himself if he'd had enough fun to make  _this_  worth it...this, or last night, or the night before, or the weekend before that...  
  
What Blaine could remember was a lot of music and fear.  
  
It was funny, he thought to himself even though it wasn't funny at all; when he was little, he'd thought liquor made people cold and robotic and void of all emotion or human frailty. It was in his mother's case, at least. He on the other hand had emotion to spare and couldn't think of anything further from the tall, poised woman with a screwed-on smile than what he saw in front of him.  
  
She had already started to ask him about coming home for Christmas. He was nowhere near being able to even consider preparing for December yet - let alone the type of intense emotional reconstruction he would undoubtedly need to undergo to survive in a few days in Ohio - but the first card of several had already appeared. A passive-aggressive missile on ivory cardstock with embossed ferns and palm fronds in her expensive pens and well-practiced hand that looked remarkably like-  
  
Blaine's eyes widened and he moved slowly, confusedly, back into the main room of the apartment. His satchel sat on the desk chair, and he fished around for a moment before he pulled out the two slips of paper he'd found on Friday. Tossing the phone number onto the desk, he turned his attention to the neatly-torn scrap of paper with the address. He reached awkwardly across the bed and plucked Peter's note from its resting place.  
  
He suddenly had no doubt he knew who had written the address. Unfortunately that just raised more questions than it answered.


	4. Chapter 4

Blaine approached the apartment complex hesitantly. Unlike his own building, this one was single-story with rows of apartments all opening toward the sidewalk. It looked older and more run-down than his own complex but seemed to be populated mostly by slightly older students - at least, judging from the ones he saw milling around on their way to and from running errands. That made sense, he supposed as he triple-checked the slip of paper in his hand against the address over the first door. This was definitely the right place...not that the knowledge did anything to calm his nerves.  
  
What was he doing? This was dumb - there were no circumstances under which this could go well. He was placing himself in harm's way, and for  _what_? What did he think could come of this?  
  
He shook his head and turned to leave, but his curiosity once again got the better of him. Why would Peter give him his address? Why had he- and  _when_? Because Blaine certainly didn't remember it, but he had to acknowledge that wasn't the best barometer for anything these days.  
  
His need for answers growing, Blaine seized on the moment and strode to the apartment door, knocking before he could change his mind. He rapped on the door twice and for a moment hoped he had everything wrong. As embarrassing as it would be to have the wrong apartment - or for the apartment to actually belong to a girl he'd flirted with on Thursday - at least then he wouldn't have to try to create an excuse for why he'd come to see someone who left him so vulnerable to a relapse.  
  
This was foolish. What exactly was he going to say when the door opened, anyway? Ask why he had this address? Apologize for throwing up on Peter the night before, because while he couldn't remember if he had, there was a better than even chance? Thank him for taking out all the trash? He had no idea what to-  
  
Before Blaine could talk himself out of being there, the door opened to reveal Peter. He was dressed in what Blaine imagined was supposed to be casual clothing - a Fair Isle sweater vest in reds and blues over a starched white shirt, with wide-leg grey trousers. He looked surprised a moment, then his face broke into a wide smile. "Blaine."  
  
Blaine fumbled for what to say - for which question to ask first - but what came out instead was the product of too many years of social training. "Peter. I hope this isn't a bad time - I should have called first."  
  
"Nonsense. Come in," Peter urged, stepping back to let him in. "Do you want something to drink?"  
  
"Coffee would be great if you have some."  
  
"Of course, it's no trouble," Peter replied. "Go ahead and have a seat." He gestured toward the right off the tiny entryway as he veered left into the kitchen. Blaine stepped into the living room slowly. The conversation was odd, much more like one he'd have in Ohio instead of at school. Most boys he knew considered "hospitality" the act of tossing a beer in the direction of whoever had just walked in. Peter's polite formality was an unnerving change...but he knew in a way he should expect nothing less from someone who dressed as the man did. Even so, it only increased his feeling of needing to get out as quickly as he possibly could before he could be sucked into a world of cocktail parties and fake smiles and rote questions.  
  
There was a middle ground, he reminded himself, between the looseness of a fraternity party and the icy rules his parents lived by. Some of the best times he'd ever had were meals with the Warblers, where a group of well-mannered boys in blazers and ties could gather around a table and both be civilized and joke with one another. Manners and hospitality were not a reason to bolt.  
  
Even if he did seem to be desperately looking for one.  
  
Blaine looked around the living room slowly, studying it as he waited for Peter to return. The room was small, maybe 10 feet on each side, but he didn't see a bed which led him to conclude there was a separate room - unlike his own studio and his old dorm and pretty much every other space near campus that was rented by a single student rather than a group of friends. The space was further limited by the bookcases that lined the walls - from floor to about a foot below the ceiling, everywhere except where the doors and windows made that impossible. The couch sat against a large built-in bookcase that allowed books to continue further up the wall but didn't require seating to block any reading material. In one corner sat a wingback chair with a lamp pointed over the back; in another corner, a beautiful old gramophone rested on a dark oak table, its bell gleaming in the mid-afternoon sunlight that streamed through the living room window.  
  
Blaine wasn't sure he'd ever seen so many books outside a library in his life. His father's study, like most he'd seen, had several bookcases full of professional references, but that was nothing compared to the thousands of tomes before him. He took a few steps toward the shelf nearest to him, browsing through the authors - Hemingway, Joyce, none of them in the least surprising given Peter's apparent obsession with the era. But those authors comprised only a small portion of Peter's collection. Blaine could see entire cases crammed with books on ancient civilizations - Greeks, Romans, a smattering of others like Egyptians and Babylonians and old Chinese dynasties...  
  
"Getting them all here was a nightmare," Peter offered from the doorway, and Blaine jumped, startled. He turned to see the dapper man carrying a silver service tray. He set it on the side table and asked, "How do you take it?'  
  
"Black, two sugars."  
  
"And strong after last night," Peter supposed. Something about his tone made Blaine uneasy. It wasn't quite judgmental, nor was it entirely understanding, and the note of worry made him even more uncomfortable. He shifted awkwardly, forcing a faint smile, and thankfully Peter moved on. "Like I said, it was hellish getting them all back here," he stated as he added two spoonfuls of sugar to the cup, giving it a cursory stir before handing it to Blaine with a saucer. The set was old and at one time Blaine was sure it looked elegant and expensive. Now years of discolouration and a few nicks gave the set a distinctly secondhand appearance; still, they were certainly nicer than the thick ceramic mug he had at home. Peter began to fix himself a cup of tea with cream. "Most of them are from before I went abroad, so those were easy enough to get out of storage and bring here. But I picked up so many books over there - there was a lovely used bookstore in Oxford, and every time I went I found at least a few I needed to read. Of course, sending them all back would have cost more in Airmail than I spent in two years away, so I convinced every classmate I had who was coming to the West Coast to stuff as many as they could fit into their luggage. It worked well, except it meant having to drive up and down California collecting them," he reported, smiling, adding, "Well, and the batch that Rudolfo is still holding hostage in West Germany. A friend of his planned to start at USF this year but ended up going to monitor elections in Alabama instead."  
  
"Did he do Freedom Summer, too?" Blaine asked. "Or did he just start in the fall?"  
  
Peter lit up at Blaine's question. "He went in September. His course didn't end until August. I wanted to go so badly, but I barely had to time to move and get set up here as it was. To be part of something so important?" He looked far away for a moment, as though picturing himself down in the rural South, single-handedly bringing justice to people who had none, and Blaine had to wonder just what kind of hero complex this guy had. Was that what all this was about - with the note and words of wisdom and taking him home? "Did you go?"  
  
"No," Blaine replied. He had thought about it - and he had wanted to on some level, but there was something about it that felt too dangerous. Not just because of what he would have been fighting for and how much active resistance there was to it, but-...  
  
He knew on some level it was dumb. No one could tell the things about him that made him different. No one would know that he should technically be "coloured" there - right? Did they consider Oriental or Malay or whatever crude term as separate down there? Maryland certainly did, he remembered that much. And no one knew he was sick there, either, which was good because it was a felony. Giving in to his illness would land him in jail for years, and he didn't want to think about having to call his parents to tell them...bad enough to be imprisoned for defying societal norms and trying to change people, but that...  
Stanford had sent a large contingent. Blaine could picture at least three buses pulling off-campus back in June, filled with eager young students determined to fix things. He wondered if they came back brimming with pride at what they had accomplished, or if they were too changed...like how the Warblers were never quite the same after giving up Nationals. Or like the feeling he never quite shook after that drive-in was raided. Being confronted with that kind of hatred  _did_  things to people, leaving them with an irrepressible sense of wrongness, of anger and indignancy but also resignation. People were truly awful...and he should have known that.  
  
Maybe it was different for those students, Blaine realized. Maybe it only felt like that to people whose own secrets were lurking too close to the surface, or who were very clearly impacted by those laws. All he had known was that, while he wholeheartedly admired the  _idea_  of Freedom Summer, the reality wasn't something he wanted to experience.  
But he couldn't say that to Peter, who looked so fascinated by it all, so he simply replied, "I had to take care of things. The Mendicants don't run themselves." The lie went unquestioned as Peter sipped his tea, looking him up and down.  
  
"So last night," Peter began without hedging or mincing around the topic, and Blaine swallowed hard around his mouthful of coffee. "Obviously I don't know you very well-"  
  
"I'm sorry," Blaine stated unequivocally. "I shouldn't have needed you to help me get home, and even though I appreciate you cleaning up, you didn't need to-"  
  
"Those were a lot of bottles."  
  
"I could have-"  
  
"Blaine, I'm pretty sure Zelda Fitzgerald didn't clean up that many bottles." The obscure reference didn't surprise him from anyone with the nickname "Gatsby," but Blaine wasn't sure exactly what to say to that. Peter took advantage of the pause to add, "I wouldn't say anything. I'm certainly no teetotaler. I understand you like to have a good time - so do I. But of four times I've seen you, you were too drunk to see straight. And you obviously drink alone, and you aren't a tortured writer, so-"  
  
"Four times?" Blaine repeated, counting them up in his head. The first party, the first day of class, last night-...and Thursday, when he had given him the address. It had to be. What other time- "What happened Thursday?" When Peter didn't immediately answer, he added, "Why did I have your address in my bag on Friday morning?"  
  
Peter stirred his tea absently before replying simply, "I gave it to you. I ran into you at a bar my friend Lucy took me to, and you didn't look so good. I hoped you might come talk sometime because I know how hard it must be for you."  
  
Blaine blinked. That didn't make any sense. Peter knew virtually nothing about him. "What do you mean?" he asked slowly, eyes narrowing.  
  
"Feeling...different," Peter offered with a vague flick of his wrist and a pointed look. "Not being able to just fade into obscurity like the rest of your classmates. Trying to deflect attention by getting all the eyes in the room and pointing them toward what you want them to see. Feeling... _wrong_  all the time." Peter's look grew more pointed again, and Blaine froze, sitting so stiffly upright on the couch that he was afraid his shoulders might lock into place like that.  
  
How did he know? Did anyone else? Was he so obvious that- he tried not to let any of his symptoms show. Had he made a mistake? Said something? Or- oh  _God, done_ something - he was too drunk to remember that let Peter in on his deepest secret?  
  
"I don't-" he tried, mouth and throat dry as cotton balls.  
  
"Blaine. Of course you do." Peter's patronizing tone might have been infuriating if he hadn't been so terrified.  
  
His fingers clutched tightly around the handle of his teacup as he tried to figure out what to say. He did know what Peter meant - of course he did - but how in the world could Peter know he was sick? He hadn't relapsed, he hadn't-...had he said something while he was drunk? Tried something last night that he couldn't remember? But instead of fearful questions, what came out was defensive. "You can't go around accusing people of that," he stated sharply, glowering at the man in the wingback chair with all the contempt he felt for himself for being in such a position in the first place. "It's a serious problem - do you know how much an accusation like that can ruin a person's life? How would you feel if someone went around saying that about you?"  
  
The question surprised Blaine as it flew out of his mouth, but that was nothing compared to Peter's reaction. The man set down his cup, face neutral with just a hint of defiance - Blaine assumed pride in not rising to the bait of the question - and sat back in the chair, legs crossed to reveal a strip of blue and red argyle sock before the top of his loafers. "I am," he stated, his voice quiet but clear as he looked Blaine in the eye. "People are free to say anything about me as long as it's true. So let them say that all they want."  
  
Blaine froze, staring at him in disbelief. Did he-...did Peter know what he was letting himself be called- and not just that, but what he was  _admitting_  to? Did he even realize what that meant for him? What people would say that, while apparently true, would be far from flattering?  
  
Even Kurt had the good sense to sound nervous the first time he admitted his illness. Blaine could still remember- in his car, on the drive back to school after the most tempting, torturous weekend he'd experienced up to that point, sleeping in the bed of a boy who was so kind and smelled so nice...he'd been terrified when Kurt had asked if he was-...and that was  _right_ , Blaine pointed out to himself, justifying even the memory. It was supposed to be uncomfortable to admit to something like that. People didn't brag about being murderers or kleptomaniacs, either. Uncontrollable urges to do what was wrong should be treated, should go  _away_ , and shouldn't be tossed about so casually like they didn't even matter - or worse, like there was nothing wrong with them at all.  
  
Kurt was that way by the end. Wanting to celebrate it and keep living that way, and that was why it had to end. He couldn't be around someone who didn't even care about his well-being...and certainly not someone who wanted them to both remain so sick. Even Kurt hadn't been quite as cavalier as this, though, so nonchalant...  
  
Which meant Peter was even more dangerous to his health.  
  
Blaine's eyes widened and he swallowed hard, gaze darting to the exit as though, if he were to disappear quickly enough back through the door and toward the safety of his home, he could erase this entire afternoon. Maybe if he left as soon as he could, he could keep from being too late - he could keep from being influenced by someone who so clearly didn't want to get better. No one who admitted it so casually and freely could be anything other than a difficult case.  
  
...He wasn't the only one, Blaine knew that too well. There were men, even ones his father saw, who didn't think there was anything wrong with them. They were forced to get help by their families because they were too far gone, too deranged, to even realize that they were hurting everyone including themselves. They were the hardest cures to find; anyone who didn't want to get better would be hard-pressed to be convinced otherwise. And Peter...  
  
His eccentricity should have given him away from the beginning, Blaine realized with a queasy feeling in the pit of his stomach. He should have known this would happen, should have known exactly how sick he was. Clearly the man didn't care what people thought about him, walking around in the clothes he did, showing up at parties for programs that weren't even his own-...there were things a person didn't do, and Peter clearly thought nothing of those conventions.  
  
For someone who had been well longer, or felt more stable in his illness, it might not be a problem...but considering how tenuous his grasp was on his condition, considering how much he had  _wanted_ -   
  
"I have to go," he said quickly, setting his teacup and saucer on the table with a clatter as he stood.  
  
"Why?" Peter asked evenly.  
  
"Because you're the last person I can be around."   
  
Blaine headed quickly for the door, expecting Peter to walk him out like anyone with that many manners would do, but instead the man remained seated, legs crossed elegantly at the knee, reclining comfortably as he bade in an even tone, "Come back any time, Blaine. I do mean that."  
  
Somehow the invitation just made him feel even sicker to his stomach. He yanked the door open and practically sprinted down the sidewalk, wanting to retreat to the safety and isolation of his apartment as quickly as humanly possible.  
  
By the time Blaine reached his apartment complex, he was breathless, so winded and dizzy he couldn't even contemplate making it up the stairs. He leaned against the wall instead, gasping for breath and trying to steady himself. It felt as though every part of his body were trying to close in on itself while his head throbbed agonizingly in time with his over-pumping heart. And his stomach...He swallowed hard against the rising bile as the organ clenched and grimaced at the burn in his throat.  
  
No. He wouldn't be sick again. He  _wouldn't_.  
  
Blaine drew in a deep breath then swallowed again, managing to only feel a little like he was choking this time. He repeated the calming motion three times more, and by the time he drew in his fifth deep breath he could feel his lungs start to fill normally instead of trying to immediately send the air right back out in a sharp pant. His gut settled from a rolling boil to a slow simmer, nausea still there but the danger of throwing up all over the wall - or his shoes - gone for now. Blaine began slowly up the steps to his apartment, taking his time to be sure each movement of his feet landed squarely on each platform. The last thing he needed, as dizzy and exhausted as he was, was to go tumbling back down to where he had been thanks to one minor yet tragic misstep.  
  
Of all the things he didn't need...  
  
Blaine finally reached his home, turning the key in the lock and almost sighing in relief as he heard the metal click of the tumbler and felt the door give way. Tossing his keys onto the desk, he flopped back against the bed, eyes closed, so tired he couldn't fathom being able to move for at least a few hours.  
  
Why did Peter have to be sick, too? he wondered defeatedly. It was so much easier when they weren't. When the object of his perverted obsessions couldn't ever return them - and would destroy Blaine if he ever knew - it was much easier to keep everything in check. Mutuality was so much more  _dangerous_. If Kurt hadn't been even sicker than he was, he could have stayed a moderate case. And the last thing Blaine wanted was a repeat of  _that_  disaster.  
  
He groaned as he caught sight of Peter's note on the nightstand. At a time like this, it felt almost cruel. He didn't have to live like this? He would give  _anything_  not to live like this, not to feel so constantly sick and wrong, not to be forever at war with himself and barely one step ahead of a lifetime in a psychiatric hospital. Who wouldn't give up anything  _not_  to live like that anymore? But it was hopeless - he was hopeless. The best he could do was try to avoid everything and everyone who might cause him to relapse.  
  
But how? Peter seemed to appear  _everywhere_  - every time he went out, at bars, at practically every party on campus... The only way to avoid him would be to stop going out.  
  
...Unless...was that what the note was really about?  
  
Four years of parties had left him completely exhausted, Blaine realized - even moving his fingers felt impossible right now, and not just because he'd run home so quickly. He had been able to run without feeling like he might honestly die at one point, he remembered with a nostalgic smile. And though he couldn't remember it, he was pretty sure there had been a time it didn't hurt to open his eyes in the morning. There was a time before the now-omnipresent headache and queasiness, before he felt like his life must involve being dragged behind a truck every night for how wretched he felt in the morning.  
  
He was pretty sure there was even a time he could remember his entire day instead of being left to wonder what he'd done after about 8 every night.  
  
The parties had been great at first: they had been the best way for him to meet people, especially since the Mendicants weren't around until his senior year, and an even better way to show off for girls. How else was he going to find a way to fit in as the awkward kid from the Midwest hiding a secret he'd had to run across the country to try to get away from? And drinking had been a huge part of that - it made it so much easier to feel  _normal_ , which he'd welcomed with open arms. But now...if he was still staring at boys - or  _a_ boy, anyway - no matter how much liquor he had in his system, and if he woke up not knowing what he'd done or whom he'd done it with, which put him so badly at risk...maybe being so drunk wasn't worth it anymore.  
  
Feeling physically ill every morning felt like a small price to pay to no longer feel sick. But it didn't make any sense at all to feel both at once.  
  
Besides, he reasoned, if he stopped going out, he didn't have to worry about running into Peter anywhere except on-campus, and it was easy enough to make an excuse to get away from a conversation there. He just had to say he was on his way to class and the boy would be none the wiser. And he was sure he could still find a way to meet girls. He was fairly certain he had the perfect vehicle for that already.  
  
So that settled it.  
  
Pleased with himself and his decision, he settled in with a quiet groan to spend a lazy day nursing his hangover.  
  
* * * * *  
  
By Thursday, Blaine was finally starting to feel normal again.  
  
He wasn't expecting to feel so awful from not drinking anymore. Somehow, though, he'd spent all day Sunday feeling as physically awful as he would have if he'd gone out on Saturday instead of lying around with staff paper and trying to arrange as much of several arrangements as he could with the nearest piano all the way across campus. Mostly he couldn't get past the dreams, though, replete with themes of being swallowed by something much larger than himself: an immense chasm, a toothy creature at least six stories tall, blackness of indeterminate origin...he awoke from each nightmare with a choked-off scream and an unshakable sense of doom that hung over him all day along with the exhaustion that he couldn't get enough sleep to combat. And he couldn't figure out why his hands kept trembling like he'd been throwing up all day; eventually it was bad enough to have to put aside everything but his school reading. By Sunday night and Monday he felt too lousy to even do that, and had to settle for lying in the dark with his record player on quietly in the background. But by Tuesday night, he was feeling less queasy and anxious, and by the time he awoke on Thursday morning, he felt almost  _good_. Not only had whatever was wrong with him apparently passed, but the Mendicants had tentatively planned to debut their new song - and sound - today.   
  
They were ready, Blaine decided as he looked around the group of thirteen eager young men that surrounded him in their usual practice room. As ready as they could be, anyway. He didn't want to over-practice them and lose all the spontaneity - that was part of what made the best performances. It was definitely part of the Mendicants' tradition at this point. Hell, learning a song more than 20 minutes before the first performance was almost too structured for some of the guys. He needed to strike the right balance. After all, it was his call now, as the leader. He wanted to make the right decisions for the group - not just so they would respect him, though he did want that. Mostly he just didn't want to let them all down. They didn't need him causing them public humiliation by taking them out before they were ready.  
  
He needed to do  _something_  right, especially this week. And this wasn't just about doing right by himself - unlike everything else - it was about the reputation of a dozen other guys.  
  
"Okay, guys," he said brightly, feeling genuinely confident about their chances for success today. "Let's go make some girls swoon." An enthusiastic cheer went up at that, and Blaine grinned as he led the group out of the music building and onto the Farm. This was a little different from last year; under Hank's direction, they had tended to perform only in the dorms, usually - okay, always -in the girls' dorms during meals, when the largest number of impressable females would be around. But there were plenty of people on-campus who would never hear them that way, Blaine had concluded, so it was time to bring the Mendicants out into the open.  
  
At just before lunchtime on a Thursday, the Main Quad was teeming with students. Blaine raised his hand to shade his eyes from the gleaming midday sun, scanning the area for the best spot between the clusters of students laughing, talking, and pretendnig to study. The  **[three grand arches](http://www.flickr.com/photos/countingphotons/3933008225/sizes/z/in/photostream/)**  at the end of the Quad seemed to be a perfect place - easy to see, with better than average accoustics for an outdoor performance, with more than enough room for the group of them to sing and dance their hearts out. Blaine grinned as the two boys who had been standing in the middle of the center arch gathered their books and headed toward the library. With a long, confident stride, he led the group toward his target. He couldn't help but feel a shiver of pride as he felt the crowd part as the line of boys walked through. Even if he knew they had to part for 14 people, it reminded him of the way it had felt to enter a room as part of the Warblers - all heads turned, conversations stopped, and it was so... _invigorating_.  
  
He turned to help arrange the group on the steps, making sure they were grouped roughly by parts since it was something only a few of the guys would think to do on their own. A couple of them looked nervous, but Blaine couldn't remember the last time he'd felt so relaxed and natural. "Just like we practiced - they'll love us," he stated encouragingly as he pulled his pitchpipe from his front pocket and blew their opening note.  
  
He had forgotten how electric a simple hum could be - starting quietly as each Mendicant picked up the pitch, then swelling into harmony as each found his own opening note from there. In this case, all but two singers began with a five-part chord in the second measure, and as Blaine hummed his own first note there was such a sense of connectedness... The sound grew until it hung around them all, surrounding them, then drifted off into the warm air as the chord faded but the energy remained. The small moment of absolute unity left Blaine breathless but invigorated, and he beamed as he counted them off, then turned to face the growing crowd.  
  
 _ **[Round](http://youtu.be/jbbFhBFbt6E),** round, get around - yeah  
Get around, round, round, I get around  
I get around, from town to town  
I'm a real cool head, I'm makin' real good bread_  
  
Blaine let the music envelope him as he waited to begin his solo. The group sounded fantastic - the way the sound just expanded on the first chord was magnificent, and they were all staying in time and tune, even though the easiest part to rush was the "get around round"s under Jerry's solo. They sounded absolutely  _perfect_ , and Blaine couldn't have been more glad he had decided to let them perform today. Even beyond seeing the crowd grow and dance along, he could  _feel_  their enthusiasm, and that meant that by the time he was supposed to sing, he would barely even need to reel them in because they would already be eating out of his hand.  
  
When it was time for him to start, he practically bounded out of the gate, more than ready, itching to begin. He attacked each note powerfully, practically bouncing on the balls of his feet as he sang.  
  
 _I'm gettin' bugged drivin' up and down this same old strip  
I've gotta find a new place where the kids are hip  
My buddies 'n' me are gettin' real well-known, yeah  
The bad guys know us and they leave us alone_  
  
Blaine had forgotten what this felt like. He knew that was ridiculous - he had sung with the Mendicants last year, even if he hadn't sung much lead under Hank's leadership with the more choral repertoire...and he sang at parties at least a couple times a month, but-  
  
...Had it been so long since he'd done this without having a few beers first? Because even though he swore he remembered loving the feeling of performing to a crowd of screaming girls - and impressed, jealous guys - he didn't recall anything feeling quite this incredible in-...wow, in  _years_ , if he was being really honest. Performing on coffee tables and staircases and bouncing through kitchens had the same kind of hazy fuzz around them that everything else from parties did: he remembered doing it, he remembered enjoying it at the time, but the actual joyous feeling was dulled a little. It was certainly nothing like  _this_.  
  
He tried to remember when he had last felt this free, like he could just keep singing until he floated away. It was before this group, he knew that, and definitely before all his music classes - he enjoyed them and always performed readily, but it was far more restrained and required a lot more concentration. It wasn't the same as just opening his mouth and letting everything go like this. For this, he would have to go back-...  
...had he really not felt this since the Warblers? Had it been that long - five  _years_? - since he'd been able to do this? Dance around and sing and... No wonder he was so miserable.  
  
 _I get around from town to town  
I'm a real cool head, I'm makin' real good bread_  
  
The realization hit him suddenly, and he was glad his solo was over by the so he didn't get carried off by his train of thought. But when he thought it that way, it made so much more  _sense_. That was what he enjoyed so much about parties - the heartfelt singing to woo girls, the ability to show off and let himself be a star, to let himself stand out in ways he knew he shouldn't want so much. Everything could just flow out of him when he sang, like all the bits of wrong bottled up inside him could come out and relieve him of the weight. If the only way he'd been able to do that for the past four years...if the only release he'd had in nearly  _half a decade_ involved alcohol...no wonder he couldn't remember much of college.  
  
But if that were why...then the solution was simple. The Mendicants were right behind him, and he could easily hop up and sing whenever he wanted. The guys were eager enough to learn a new song every week, and he was willing to bet that as long as he had this every Thursday, he could easily stay away from all the parties on Friday and Saturday - and with it, the drinking, and the boy who wouldn't leave him alone.  
  
 _I get around, round, get around round round oo  
Wa-wa oo_  
  
Blaine almost laughed right along with the crowd as Eddie sang the exaggerated guitar part. It looked like half of campus had wandered over, even though Blaine knew logically it wasn't really that many people. And one of those people just happened to be a very attractive girl about three rows back. She listened to them with her eyes half-closed, as though trying to decide whether to risk losing the visuals of the performance to let the music carry her away. He didn't know anyone else who might listen to a group like them that way, but he was instantly taken with the idea...and determined to make it worth her while to keep her eyes open. With renewed enthusiasm, he began his next verse.  
  
 _We always take my car 'cause it's never been beat  
And we've never missed yet with the girls we meet._  
  
He tried to catch her eye on the line, but her head was tilted partway to the side as she listened intently. Frustrated but far from defeated, he turned his focus to the remainder of the throng. Plenty of girls watched him as he clapped along with the group, bopping along.  
  
 _None of the guys go steady 'cause it wouldn't be right  
To leave your best girl home on a Saturday night._  
  
He finally - at last! - managed to get her attention on the last line, giving a playful wink. He expected the same blush-and-smile he'd come to expect from girls when he smiled their way - at least when he was singing. Instead, she rolled her eyes a little. The look would have stung more if she hadn't been smiling - like she got what he was trying to do and found it cute in a patronizing way instead of the way he'd become accustomed to. Nothing about her was like the rest of the girls, Blaine concluded - or, at least, nothing that  _mattered_  was like the others, because physically she was on par with plenty of other young ladies in the audience with her shoulder-length brown hair and pale skin. And that just made him want to try harder to win her over.  
  
That wasn't new for him. Hank had sworn that every other Mendicant took any girl that wanted him - and had his pick - while Blaine only wanted the girls who didn't find him charming. It wasn't intentional, not that Blaine could tell consciously at any rate (though he was sure his father would have plenty to say about it anyway). Those girls were just the most  _interesting_. They gave him something to look for, to explore, to figure out...  
The extra points he got from the guys when he sealed the deal with a girl who played hard-to-get helped, especially at parties. But really, he just wanted to know what made the girl tick. What interesting things she heard in their music. And what it would take for her to think he was charming. He was at his best when he sang, so if that wouldn't cut it...  
  
 _I get around, from town to town  
I'm a real cool head, I'm makin' real good bread  
Round, round, get around, I get around!_  
  
Applause and cheers thundered around the fourteen boys as they finished, breathless and triumphant. If the Beatles heard louder screams, Blaine concluded, they would certainly be deaf by now. They had done it: they had managed to make their first performance of the year - and their first out-in-the-open performance ever - a smashing success. Sure, there were kinks they could still iron out: Jerry didn't quite hit a few of the highest notes cleanly, though Blaine was confident no one else would notice because he managed to make it sound stylistic instead of a vocal failing; Matt still lagged a bit, while Craig rushed the bass line going into the "wa-wa oo"s. But it had been a great performance.  
  
And so much  _fun_. He felt like he could breathe again - really draw a full breath and feel it fill his whole body. He'd needed this, even more than he had realized. The freedom, the way he felt so much lighter - and, best of all, an afternoon free of any signs of illness. He'd be fine as long as he could keep doing this all the time. Better - he'd be  _perfect_.  
  
The crowed began to break up when it became clear that there weren't more songs coming. Some wandered to class, others headed off to get food. A healthy number of girls stayed to talk to - and flirt with - the group of ecstatic boys behind him. Blaine slipped past several girls who were clearly trying to get his attention, bounding over to where the girl he'd noticed stood talking with her friend. He needed something cool to say to start the conversation, something that would win her over in a way that the song evidently hadn't. "Hi."  
  
She looked up, giggling at something her friend had said. "Hello," she replied dryly with a faint smile.  
  
She didn't respond to the winning grin, but Blaine was undeterred. "Did you enjoy it?"  
"I thought you were pretty sure of yourself considering your first tenor slid onto every high note and your bass rushed the break," she replied with an easy, matter-of-fact tone.  
  
That wasn't the answer Blaine had been expected. "You know your stuff," he stated with a note of appreciation. She really had been listening when she looked like she might get lost in the music. "I haven't seen you around the Music Department."  
  
"I've only been here a week. I just transferred from Berklee."  
  
"A lot of trouble to move about 50 miles, isn't it?" Blaine asked, and she laughed. She lit up, Blaine noticed, feeling like he could swoon at the way her entire face brightened.  
  
"No - the 'other' Berklee. In Boston."  
  
"Oh - the school of music, not-"  
  
"Yeah," she smiled, nodding.  
  
If she'd been appealing before, the knowledge that she would understand the same language he did made her even more incredible as far as Blaine was concerned. "My name's Blaine," he said, holding out his hand, and his heart leapt as she took it.  
  
"Evelyn Hoff," she replied.  
  
For years, he'd been trying to figure out how to feel the things everyone else felt when they looked at girls; he couldn't be sure, but was pretty sure the fluttery nerves in his stomach were a good sign - and so was the fact that he couldn't help but smile whenever he saw her. "Can I take you to dinner, Evelyn?" he asked. When she hesitated, he added in a rush, "It's just rare to find a girl who appreciates music as much as do, and I thought-"  
  
She grinned slyly as she observed, "You sing much more confidently than you speak."  
  
It was true, of course, but he wasn't used to anyone else noticing - let alone commenting on it. "Music's just easier sometimes," he admitted, hoping she would understand. Most people didn't, even within the music department...even within the Mendicants. Most of them just enjoyed music, it wasn't something so all-consuming as it was for him.  
  
To his relief, she smiled more broadly at that as she replied, "Almost all the time." She paused in thought, then replied, "Yes. You can take me to dinner." In a smooth motion, she pulled a pen out of her notebook and turned Blaine's hand to write her phone number across his palm. "I have to get to class. It was nice meeting you." She tucked her pen back into her spiral notebook and hurried off with her friend while Blaine stood in place and watched her go.  
  
See? Who needed parties and drinking when he had music to get an incredible girl like that?


	5. Chapter 5

By the time Saturday night rolled around Blaine was so excited he could burst. Just spontaneously explode into a hundred thousand happy pieces - or just start singing and dancing completely uncontrollably to every jubilant, blissful love song he'd ever heard.  
  
She was just so...so  _amazing_.  
  
He had planned on waiting a few days to call Evelyn, then asking her out for the following weekend, but by the time he got home on Thursday after class he had felt so incredible from the combination of the performance and her smile and his headache and trembling finally being gone that he hadn't been able to concentrate on his homework or arrangements or anything, even though he really did want the Mendicants to start performing at least once a week. All he could do was stare at the phone, then at the slip of paper onto which he had dutifully copied her number for fear of pen smudging off his palm before the end of the day and removing his only way of contacting her. He'd picked up the phone and set it down again at least seven times, each time chastising himself for looking too desperate by calling so soon.  
  
He couldn't help it, he  _was_  desperate - desperate to see her again.  
  
He didn't know what it was about her that made him so head-over-heels, but he  _was_. Maybe it was the way she laughed at him when his apology for calling so soon tumbled out in a rush - amused by his eagerness, but not mocking, at least not cruelly. Maybe it was the way even her  _voice_  held a melody that made him want to listen to her for hours. Maybe it was the way she excused herself to hang up - reluctant, clearly, but excited by the prospect of reading for advanced music theory...no one else he'd ever met liked reading music theory. Maybe that was why no one quite understood him.  
  
No one except Evelyn.  
  
She just made him feel so utterly fantastic. Unstoppable.  _Normal_. Like all the best sensations of performing an amazing song had been materialized into a single person.  
  
So when he had asked if she would go out with him and she had asked when, he hadn't been able to stop himself from suggesting this weekend - waiting a whole week to see her again just seemed cruel to them both, at least assuming she felt half as strongly for him as he did for her. She had taken pity on his desperate, lovestruck self and agreed to Saturday at 7.  
  
Which meant that by Saturday at 4, he was about ready to jump out of his skin.  
  
He changed his outfit four times and his bowtie nine, then finally convinced himself that a nice, long shower would calm him down; by the time he emerged, he was proud to say he was only checking the clock on the nightstand every eight minutes instead of every three. That was a significant enough improvement, he decided with a self-satisfied grin as he carefully pressed his shirt.  
  
He knew it was probably silly - he just couldn't remember ever feeling this way before, certainly not about a girl, least of all before a date. That had to mean something, didn't it?  
  
Blaine stepped in front of the mirror, smiling and singing to himself as he began to expertly tie his bowtie.  
  
 _Why does my heart skip a crazy beat?  
For I know it will reach defeat_  
  
Blaine laughed at his reflection as his shoulder automatically shrugged forward in time to accent the words. He hadn't sung the song in years, but he still fell into the way the Warblers had done it. He could remember performing it with the guys, dancing around the Commons and seeing-  
  
 _Tell me why-_  
  
His throat clenched, cutting off the note roughly. The silk bowtie crushed beneath his fingertips, and he tried to force his eyes open to not get lost in the song and everything that came after, to not remember the way  _he_  looked that day - with his shrewd eyes much wider and more surprised, a slow grin spreading across that devastatingly attractive face, looking completely out of place and so... If he'd only been able to keep his eyes off that boy, he might have been okay. If Sam hadn't helped drag him into the Warblers, where it was impossible for them to avoid one another, he probably would have been asymptomatic all year. Instead he'd-...Blaine wasn't going to say he showed off for him, but even remembering the way Kurt had stared at him - but now with the knowledge of the illness that had lurked just beneath the brilliant blue-green eyes and adorable grin - was enough to make him feel uneasy and sick.  
  
He swallowed hard and tugged at the tie. He wasn't sick anymore - that was the important part, he reminded himself as evenly and as firmly as he could. He'd had a severe teenage malady, but that didn't mean it would have any bearing on the rest of his life, especially not now that he was going out with his cure.  
  
The right girl could do that, he knew; his father had come home many times bragging about how his once-difficult case had recovered nicely and was engaged to a lovely girl, had gotten married, had a baby on the way...was a good family man with a house and a respectable job and a beautiful wife...  
  
Evelyn would be great for him. He could have all the things he wanted with her - he could already imagine standing in the doorway, watching her rock their child to sleep and singing the most beautiful lullaby...for years, something so blandly pedestrian seemed out of reach, but now with  _her_  it suddenly felt possible.  
  
He could love her - he might already. They hadn't talked for very long, but he was so drawn to her, and she made him feel so incredible... If this wasn't love, he couldn't imagine what was.  
  
Taking a few deep breaths to banish the unpleasant memories of his symptoms, he tied his bowtie neatly and pulled on his blazer. He had a great feeling about tonight, and no reminders of his illness were going to stand in the way of that.  
  
* * * * *  
It had been a long time since Blaine had taken a girl on a proper date, but he was sure he would have remembered one as nice as this if he'd ever had one before. Evelyn looked amazing in the candlelight, though he suspected she would be stunning in any light; her brown hair curled around her shoulders, brushing against the straps of her [pink dress](http://file.vintageadbrowser.com/lpsgx6n3ldi9jj.jpg), showing off her slender neck. She had been so beautiful when she had opened her door that he hadn't known what to say and she had simply smiled and rolled her eyes fondly as she stated, "I take your speechlessness as a compliment - will I need a sweater where we're going?"  
  
He loved how  _easy_  she was about everything, how effortless. He felt more often than not like he was trying and struggling and thinking and pretending so hard, just to come across as not-too-noteworthy. But Evelyn just  _was_ ; she seemed completely unpretentious. She said what she was thinking instead of talking around everything, but never in a mean way, just like...well, like she had a right to say what was true and refused to be bothered by rules about what should be said on a date, and that made everything she said  _right_. It didn't feel stiff and formal and forced, like two people who had known each other less than a week, and Blaine found himself able to relax and just gaze at her by midway through their appetizers until it occurred to him that he wasn't being a very good date yet.  
  
"What made you want to move all the way out here?" he asked.  
  
She looked up from her menu, a little surprised, but she smiled easily as she replied, "My family's from Oregon. I wanted to be close enough to visit more than once a year if I wanted. Breaks could get so lonely when everyone else went back home but I stayed in New England. But I can go back for Thanksgiving and Christmas this year, so I think I made the right choice." Blaine couldn't imagine wanting to be near his family or see them more often; his own ticket home sat threateningly on top of his dresser, and every time he saw it he felt a shudder of dread. The distance from everyone and everything was part of Stanford's appeal, if he were being entirely honest. But she made it sound so nice... "Does that mean you're close to your family?"  
  
"Oh, absolutely,” she smiled broadly. "Don't get me wrong, I'm not the kind of girl who wants to go right back to her hometown and settle down after graduation. I want a little more distance than that. But it's nice to be able to go back every so often. Especially on holidays. My mother makes the most amazing turkey you've ever tasted..."  
  
Maybe it was the alien image of a proper mother in the kitchen, let alone cooking something so tantalizing, but Blaine let himself get lost in the home Evelyn described - moderately-sized and packed to the brim with extended family, smelling incredible from all the different food piled high on the dining room table. None of it was fancy, but that didn't matter. And in the living room, in front of the big picture window, was a tree covered from floor to ceiling with handmade ornaments with a beautiful star on top and a heap of presents beneath... He could imagine himself there, sandwiched on the couch between two of her uncles as they enthusiastically watched a basketball game. And he would look across the room to here Evelyn stood talking to her sisters (did she have sisters? She hadn't said yet, but she had mentioned cousins - she could be talking to cousins then), laughing and animated and relaxed and... _home_.  
  
No Christmas in the Anderson house had ever felt that way. With his parents, it never would But with Evelyn...  
  
Maybe he was jumping the gun a little, he acknowledged reluctantly to himself. It was only their first date, after all, they hadn't even kissed yet, but no one made him feel like this. So hopeful for the future. People said you just  _knew_  when you found the girl you were meant to be with, didn't they? And he  _knew_  she was right for him. She had to be. He didn't know anyone else who could make him feel at once so breathless and completely comfortable. He could marry her.  
  
She was staring at him, and he hoped desperately he hadn't said that out loud. "I'm sorry?"  
  
"Where'd you go?"  
  
"Just picturing what you were talking about," he stated honestly. Mostly. "It sounds like a great way to spend Christmas."  
  
"What about you? Are you close to your family?"  
  
It was such a simple question, so easy for someone like her to answer for several reasons, but Blaine felt trapped by it. No, he wasn't. But any response would require an explanation and there were no explanations that would be appropriate for a polite conversation like a first date. even if he were willing to follow her lead and drop the strict social rules —and he wasn't — he didn't know how to even begin to explain the answer to that question. To be close to someone required that they let you, and neither of his parents would ever be capable of that. One refused on principle, stating that an overly-needy child was a sign of failed parenting, and the other was so lost in a societal fog that she couldn't comprehend any real closeness. To be close would mean warmth and emotion and actual conversation, and no, there wasn't any of that in his family. But saying it like that...  
  
"I'm sorry," Evelyn stated sincerely when he didn't answer, and Blaine tried in vain to grin to make it seem like there was nothing wrong with the question. "I ask too much and talk too much, I should—" She started to pick up her menu again, but Blaine reached across the table to quickly catch her hands.  
  
"No - you don't talk too much. Or ask too much," he stated unequivocally. "That's just...a complicated question," he admitted. "Complicated" was probably the nicest word he could put on it, and he was proud of himself for his restraint.  
  
"Then I'm sorry for that, too."  
  
Blaine had heard people apologize plenty of times in his life, especially for uncomfortable issues or out of politeness in a host of social settings. Evelyn was the first person he'd heard sound genuinely sincere. He flashed a quick smile, then steered the conversation to something far more comfortable and not nearly so complicated. "Did you always know you wanted to study music?"  
  
Evelyn laughed softy. "No. My teachers all swore I'd study literature. I love to read. But there's something that music can do to me that even the best novels can't."  
  
Blaine smiled because he understood completely. He'd always done well enough in English class, and teachers at Dalton had praised his essays, but there was still something so analytical about it all for him - not like the freedom and unbridled emotion of a beautiful piece of music. "Of course," he replied.  
  
"Everyone was surprised when I told them I'd applied to Berklee... even if none of them were surprised I was accepted. Maybe they just knew well enough to pretend." Blaine laughed softly. "I thought about studying other things, doing something else, but music kept pulling me back. I don't know what I want to do when I'm done with school, I just know that music is the one thing that always makes sense." She paused, studying him, then added, "But I doubt I have to explain that to you. I saw the way you perform."  
  
Blaine smiled at the acknowledgment. "And here I thought you listened to the whole thing with your eyes closed so you could pick apart the first tenors," he teased, hoping it was the right level of humour - it could be hard to tell, there were reasons jokes were discouraged at formal events with unfamiliar company-  
  
But Evelyn simply smirked. "You just aren't used to anyone who isn't blinded by your charm," she shot back, and he laughed, unable to quite believe how easy all of this felt. He'd resigned himself to having to force himself to sort-of like a girl until something could blossom between them, but Evelyn made everything feel natural in a way he had almost given up on. She was so  _warm_ , even when she made fun of him and ripped apart the Mendicants' music... Of course, it made sense given where she came from. His father was always quick to point out that individuals were the product of their families; of course, he was almost always trying to blame a mother's overbearing nature or a father's absence or pitiable lack of masculinity for his patients' illnesses, but Blaine had long believed it had to work the other way as well - that people who were fortunate enough to come from warm families were themselves open people with an inherent warmth that was completely unlike his own family.  
  
For years he had wondered if, by virtue of where he came from, he would be forced to live out his life as an emotional cripple - or, worse, if he would have to work as hard and as continuously to make up for his stunting in that area as he had to work to combat his symptoms. He didn't know if he had enough fight in him for that. The way Evelyn made him smile, though, made him think that she could help him be warm if he let her. She could let him show how he felt and not be afraid. And together, they could create a family -a home for their children that would be like everything he had wanted growing up: family dinners at tables that were the right size, with actual conversations, with emotions and kids' school pageants and...and  _love_. Joy. Music.  
  
All through dinner, he couldn't stop himself from watching her and imagining their life together: when she smiled over the menu, he saw the way she would beam when he proposed to her in song - backed up by a dozen dancing boys; when she twirled the pasta around her fork elegantly, he pictured a hectic dinner with three kids and the way they would glance across the table at one another and still feel time stop when they caught each other's eye; when she rolled the 'r' lightly as she ordered the tiramisu, he imagined them traveling through Europe with their life savings, wanting to feel glamorous and worldly and experience everything the continent could offer; as she tucked her hair behind her ear, he could see her greying and aging but never being any less beautiful than the stunning young woman who sat before him, bathed in soft candlelight. The conversation never stopped, though they did slip into comfortable silence for a few moments at a time, and by the time he slipped money into the check folio his cheeks almost ached from smiling for so long. He couldn't remember enjoying himself so thoroughly in-...ever.  
  
No party could ever compare to a night like this. Peter had been right: there were much better things in life than beer-soaked evenings he couldn't remember. The half-glass of wine he'd had with dinner tasted great with the meal but hadn't impaired or numbed or changed anything, and for once he was glad for it. He didn't want anything to come between him and this night, to dull the things he felt.  
  
He wanted to remember this date forever.  
  
The sky was full of stars, visible even beneath the glare of streetlights, by the time they stepped out of the restaurant into the balmy September night air. "It's not too late yet," Blaine observed. "What do you want to do now?"  
  
Evelyn leaned in and kissed him quickly – just a light peck on the corner of his lips. It caught him off-guard, and he shifted to look at her more directly. Her smile looked softer now, almost shy but at the same time very sure, eyes sparkling in the uneven light. She gave a half-nod of encouragement, smile pulling to one side a bit. Blaine wrapped one arm gently around her, pulling her close as he lowered his lips to hers and kissed her slowly. Her mouth was soft and warm beneath his, and he felt-  
  
 _…nothing_.  
  
That didn’t make any sense, he thought, fighting the instinctive panic rising in his chest. She was gorgeous and smart and witty and he was completely in love with her – wasn’t that supposed to make the kiss magical? He’d always heard- or seen in movies, anyway, because his parents certainly wouldn’t say such a thing and boys didn’t really talk about things like that…But it was supposed to be like fireworks, like the most amazing feeling, like something other than nice-enough lips squishing against one another.  
  
Which meant something was wrong.  
  
Blaine pulled back slightly, wondering if maybe it was a problem for both of them – and if Evelyn knew how to fix it – but her eyes were still closed, smile broadening for a moment before she let her eyelids flutter open slowly like waking up from a great dream…which meant it wasn’t a problem she was having as well. It wasn’t mutual. It was just him.  
  
No. No no no.  _No_. She was perfect, and there was no way-  
  
He’d been able to have great kisses before, he knew that for certain. Besides the ones that made him sick to think about, there were plenty of times he’d loved kissing girls – at parties, and at bars, and-…  
  
 _That_  was it, he assured himself, feeling slightly more at-ease. He was just remembering the way kisses felt when he was drunk. In the same way that all the memories of house parties were a little fuzzier and more disjointed than memories from high school (even though those were a lot longer ago), kisses with half a glass of wine just felt different than ones with half a bottle of vodka. That was all.  
  
...It just didn’t feel as good as he expected. Not nearly as good as he wanted it to feel, especially not with the girl he was going to marry. He liked to think that, of all people, there would be a spark with her.  
  
“Have you ever been to Sid’s?” he asked.  
  
“No,” she replied slowly, clearly not sure where this was going.  
  
“It’s a piano bar, they always have some really great people, especially on a weekend.” He was trying to rack his brain for more specifics that might entice her, but she grinned.  
  
“Sounds good,” she replied, slipping her hand into his.  
  
Why couldn’t her mouth feel as perfect against his as her hand did against his palm?  
  
By the time they reached Sid’s, Blaine was feeling better and far less cagey. For one thing, listening to Evelyn talk all the way across campus about her friends at Berklee and the amazing showcase they had put on in May and all the dating across schools – and ensuing rivalries – in Boston and Cambridge, made for a quick walk that could lift anyone’s spirits. For another, he had a fool proof plan to make sure the date ended as perfectly as it had begun.  
  
He knew he had given up his old drunken ways, but the beer he ordered wasn’t really going  _back_  to them – not at all. It was just an experiment. In biology sophomore year, they had talked extensively about the importance of a control group; it was essential to leave one item or group unchanged and change only one thing in each experiment – at least compared to the control – in order to tell what was the result of the experiment and what was just a natural occurrence. He had no way of knowing whether the lack of a spark in the kiss was because of his newfound sobriety and a foggy recollection about what kisses were meant to feel like or because of the girl unless he put one of those to the test.  
  
He had no interest in kissing anyone but Evelyn tonight – and she would take offense if he did. But if he had a couple drinks… if he still felt nothing, he would know it was a question of the girl involved; if he felt something, he would know he just wasn’t used to kissing girls sober anymore, and that there was nothing wrong with his chemistry with Eveyln.  
  
And if the alcohol failed, at least he’d still have the most foolproof option he knew: a song or three was always good to get the right emotions coursing through him, and it was the language he and Evelyn both spoke best. If anything could connect them where a beer or two failed, that was sure to be it.  
  
And so, armed with a Coors and a lengthy repertoire of appropriately in-love songs, he escorted Evelyn through the crowded bar toward his favourite booth. It was exactly opposite the piano and stage so both patrons could see the performances – unlike the ill-conceived booths lining the wall opposite the bar, where only one person of four could actually watch the singers. At the same time, the booth’s position behind the tables gave a bit more privacy, since almost everyone was facing forward and not watching half-drunk couples make out in the back booth… which was what Blaine hoped his night would yield.  
  
Evelyn took a sip of her Yuengling and glanced around. “This is… quite a place,” she offered charitably.  
  
“You should have seen it when it had a ceiling,” Blaine joked. His freshman year, it had been a dimly-lit, claustrophobic place with a low ceiling and light coming from a handful of ugly wall sconces that didn’t match the building’s Spanish mission style at all – tacky faux-gold with scrolls and a bargain “old Hollywood” feel. Over Christmas break, the crawlspace of an “attic” that served as a storage area had collapsed, leaving half the bar exposed all the way up to the underside of the terra cotta roof. Upon finding out just how much a new ceiling would cost, Sid had told the repairman to just rip the rest down instead. It gave the bar more headroom but also a decidedly half-finished look, especially with lights now swinging from long chains to try to light the larger space… and because the top half of the room was now painted about three shades lighter than the bottom half.  
  
“That sounds ominous.”  
  
“All good places should have some mystery,” he offered before taking a long swig from his bottle. He didn’t want to have to wait too long, in a hurry to make things go back to feeling  _right_  - the way they had before he stopped feeling anything but anxious and wrong again. Evelyn had made him feel so incredible earlier, and he could get back to that sense of everything being perfect – he was sure of it.   
  
Assuming this worked.  
  
With more determination than ever he settled sideways in the booth, back against the wall, to listen to a group of drama majors singing selections from Hello Dolly.  
  
As Blaine finished his first beer and signaled the busboy that he needed another – Jimmy would run drinks from the bar for people who were in there a lot, or who he liked; Blaine was in both categories – he reached across the table to take Evelyn’s hand. She glanced away from the stage to flash him a quick but sincere smile. He wondered if he would ever take that smile for granted – even when they’d been married for fifty years, he liked to believe he would still love that expression on her face. He kept his hand around hers and only looked away to grab his next drink when Jimmy placed it on the table.  
  
Just as the second drink was almost empty, Jimmy brought a third beer without prompting, and Blaine smiled broadly in thanks. He was starting to feel almost lazily merry, buzzed enough to know he’d had some alcohol but not so much that he wouldn’t remember this. He pushed away the empty bottle and looked over at Evelyn. “D’you need another?” he asked, seeing her bottle almost empty as well. “I can have Jimmy bring-“  
  
“No thanks – I’m fine,” she said slowly, eyeing him suspiciously.  
  
Uh oh. That didn’t sound good. It was time to move on to the next phase of his experiment before the entire thing exploded. “Do you want to leave? We could go somewhere quieter and talk,” he offered. He loved hearing her talk, she was so smart and charming and adorably enthusiastic… “I could take you home, but I don’t want the date to end yet,” he admitted, and she softened a little, smiling.  
  
“We could walk around for awhile,” she suggested. “You’d have to lead, I don’t know the area. But it seems safer than Boston.”  
  
“Very safe,” he assured her. He stood, taking a final swig that emptied almost half the bottle – it seemed a shame to waste the beer, and since they couldn’t resell it after it was opened and at the table – and tossed $5 on the table. Reaching over, he took Evelyn’s hand, almost sighing at how perfect this was. How perfect  _she_  was. How perfect their kids would be…  
  
They had barely made it out the door when he decided now was the time. She looked incredible in the moonlight – or parking lot light, he guessed – and he’d wanted to kiss her for what felt like forever and if he was going to marry her one day, he needed to be sure he could kiss her, right? Before she was standing in front of the whole big family a white wedding dress, he needed to know that the problem was him and not her. He tugged her gently to stand in front of him, and she laughed in surprise as she almost fell into his chest. She looked up at him with bemusement, ready to say something, but he couldn’t help himself. He leaned down to kiss her, cautious and worried this might not work, and  _then_  what? What did a man do if he didn’t like kissing the girl he wanted to spend the rest of his life with?  
  
He didn’t have to worry; kissing Evelyn felt completely normal.  _Really_  good. Satisfied with the results of his experiment, and proud of the ingenuity it had taken to come up with such a genius plan, Blaine smirked to himself as he deepened the kiss, arms tightening around her a little. They fit together, he noticed, and he just wanted to kiss her and feel her all night – and smell her, he hadn’t noticed her perfume before but whatever it was smelled amazing.  
  
“Let’s go to my place,” he urged against her lips. “God, Evelyn, you’re so beautiful, I-”  
  
He didn’t understand what happened next. He felt hands on his chest shove him back hard, and he heard Evelyn yelling at him, but the sound started before the words – like an old TV he’d seen once where the sound would come out of the speakers while the screen was still warming up.  
  
“What is wrong with you?” she demanded, hands on her hips, eyes blazing.  
  
He had no idea what she was even asking – what he’d done to make her so mad. She’d liked kissing him earlier, now he could like kissing her too, why not- “What’s wrong?”  
  
“I didn’t think anywhere could have boys who were more obnoxious with booze than the ones in Boston, but you take the cake!”  
  
Blaine blinked, not sure what that had to do with anything. “Evelyn-” he tried, but she just kept yelling. “Why are you mad at me?” he demanded, frustrated.  
  
“You act like a gentleman to lure girls into a false sense of security, but get a couple drinks in you-…Let me tell you something, Blaine Anderson: I have no interest in being loose, or in being with someone who only wants to kiss me when they’ve had a few too many.” She turned and began to storm across the parking lot toward the street.  
  
Blaine ambled after her. “Where are you going?’  
  
“Home!” she called over her shoulder as she hung a right out of the parking lot.  
  
Blaine was pretty sure she needed to go left to get home. “That’s the wrong way,” he tried to call helpfully, but she just kept walking as fast as she could away from him, leaving him standing alone in front of Sid’s.  
  
He didn’t understand. Everything had been great, and then it had been perfect, and now she was storming off and furious with him? That had never happened before, and  _now_  of all times, when things finally felt  _right_ , when he finally felt the way a boy was meant to feel when he kissed a girl he liked, she turned on him with no explanation – at least, none he could understand. He played it over and over again, her pushing him, her ranting about Boston, saying-  
  
…Wait. Had his experiment been this flawed? Had it been the drinks that had driven her away? Admittedly, suggesting she come home with him had been a little forward for a first date - Okay, fine, very forward, but he’d never had a girl leave over that before. Actually, he couldn’t remember a girl turning him down before, but that was different.  _Evelyn_  was different. She was independent and assertive but traditional in a way he loved. Respected.  _Envied._  Of course she wasn’t the same as some girl he met at a fraternity Halloween bash dressed as Marilyn’s ghost or something similar. Those girls went to parties for the same reasons he did: to have a good time, to feel good, to be part of a group of people all feeling blissful and drunk and normal…  
  
The same stupid, hedonistic  _selfish_  reasons he went.  
  
And the worst part, he concluded as he began to walk dejectedly across the parking lot, hoping he’d given Evelyn enough of a head start that she wouldn’t think he was trying to follow her. The worst part was that he could recognize all the ways she was different – not just incredible, but different than other girls he’d kissed before they ever went to Sid’s. But he’d been trying so hard to make kissing her feel like kissing a girl in a stranger’s bedroom while there was a party downstairs… How dumb could he be? He kicked at a rock as he walked, frustrated.  
  
This was the real reason he needed to stop drinking, he concluded defeatedly. He’d gotten so used to artificial pleasure that he couldn’t enjoy the best thing to happen to him in years. He’d let it get in the way and drive away the most perfect girl he had ever met.  
  
He had to get her back somehow.  
  
He couldn’t just let this girl who understood him so well, who made him so happy, get away. They were meant to be together, he knew they were- he  _loved_  her. He was completely in love with that girl after half a date and that meant he couldn’t let one idiotic mistake run her out of his lie forever. But how could he fix this? All he could think of was trying to sing his feelings, but that might not be enough. It would be part of the apology, absolutely, but it needed to be more than that…and for anything beyond a heartfelt production number he was drawing a blank.  
  
There had to be someone who could give him advice and help him out, but he was drawing a blank there, too. While all (okay, most) of the Mendicants were experienced ladies’ men, they tended to be in the same boat he was: great at getting a girl but rotten at keeping her. None of the guys he knew in his classes or building had anyone long-term that he knew of. And for good advice generally he could think of exactly one person at Stanford who had given him a useful suggestion in the whole four years he’d been there.  
  
Actually, he realized, as much as it pained him and made him uncomfortable to admit…if he’d just listened to Peter, Evelyn wouldn’t have stormed off. If he’d stopped drinking and  _stayed_  stopped, the whole mess could have been avoided, and they would probably still be walking through Palo Alto together.  
  
He didn’t necessarily want to go to Peter for advice. It would never be a good idea for him to spend time around men who were sick…but if Peter could help him get back the woman of his dreams, then surely spending a few minutes around a gentleman in a fedora was a small price to pay for something so important.  
  
And Peter  _had_  told him to come back anytime…  
  
With a renewed sense of purpose, Blaine turned left and headed in the direction of the desperately-ill boy he hoped might help him get back the girl who would cure him. 


	6. Chapter 6

What level of sobriety Blaine had recovered during the mile and a half walk to Peter's apartment had been offset - and then some - by his growing frustration with himself. He didn't know how he had managed to screw things up this badly - well, that wasn't true. He understood why Evelyn had gotten angry with him. He would've been angry with him, too - he  _was_  angry with himself over what he'd done. How could he have been so dumb when he was trying to do something good? And how did he fix it? What could he possible do to get Evelyn to understand that he was sorry and it would never,  _ever_  happen again?  
  
It would never need to happen again, for one thing. He had only been doing it to know whether the problem was Evelyn or was the fact that he was used to a personal three drink minimum. And now that he knew it was simply a matter of being used to the sensation of kissing a girl while drunk, he could kiss her any time he wanted without panicking. Kissing her wasn't  _bad_ , per se, it wasn't as though he would turn down kissing her again if she offered, it just wasn't what he had thought it would be.  
  
He was pretty sure that explanation wasn't going to win back anyone, let alone a girl as incredible as her.  
  
He found Peter's apartment easily, even in the dark, but he wasn't sure if that was a sign that the alcohol was largely out of his system or that he had much too good of a sense of direction when he'd been drinking. The knowledge that he had four years of practice at navigating Palo Alto in the dark in varying degrees of non-sobriety did little to comfort him. He really did need advice, didn't he?  
  
BLaine rapped on the door. When no answer came, he knocked again - faster, feeling more desperate. He knew Peter was probably asleep - as well he should be, as well  _Blaine_  probably should be, and would be if he'd followed the advice in the first place. He would have walked Evelyn home after a lovely dinner and gone back to his own apartment, but no... That was why he needed Peter's help right away: the man might be eccentric and sick, but he had known what Blaine needed to do before. Hopefully now-  
  
The door opened to reveal Peter, in pajamas and a matching bathrobe. His hair was perfectly in place, and his expression was more confused than sleep-foggy. Even so, Blaine began as politely as he could under the circumstances. "I'm sorry, I know it's late. I didn't wake you, did I?"  
  
"No, I was just reading. Are you okay?"  
  
BLaine wanted to be able to say yes so badly, but how could a guy be okay when he had just driven away the girl of his dreams with his own actions? "I need your help," he stated instead, feeling beyond pathetic to have to ask.  
  
Peter looked him up and down appraisingly, and Blaine shifted under his scrutiny. "Come inside. Let's get you some coffee," he said finally, disappointment held in the even tone of his voice and the way he seemed resigned to the turn his evening had taken.   
  
Great, Blaine thought dejectedly as Peter led him inside and pointed him into the living room while he went to the kitchen to make beverages. Even someone who proudly proclaimed his own psychosexual disease was disappointed in him. Evelyn was never going to forgive him at this rate. He sat in the wingback chair, sinking back and wishing he could just disappear until enough time had passed that he could be forgiven, or that he could transport himself back in time and never have those beers in the first place.  
  
"Here we go," Peter said as he carried out the tray, setting it on the coffee table before handing Blaine's cup to him. Blaine held back a sigh as he sat forward enough to take the saucer. He started to lean forward to reach for the sugar bowl, but Peter shook his head and offered a casual wave of one hand, explaining, "It's already in there."  
  
Blaine's eyes narrowed a little. "You remembered how I take my coffee?"  
  
"It's amazing what one's brain can do when not steeping in grain alcohol," Peter mumbled against the rim of his cup as he took a sip of tea.  
  
Blaine stared into his cup, ashamed that Peter was right. "I tried,"he stated sincerely. "I gave it up after last time."  
  
"Of course." Peter's tone was patronizing, and Blaine felt his anger and frustration rising again.  
  
"No," he stated emphatically. He had tried so hard, and Peter needed to know that.  _Someone_  needed to know how much he tried, how well he meant, what it felt like to be inside his head even if he could never tell the whole story. It needed to be relevant that he really had tried to do the right thing - that he was  _constantly_  trying and fighting to do the right thing, even if it never came out right. Effort and intent needed to matter, or what was the point? "I gave it up last Saturday, after I left here. And tonight was different. It ended just as badly - okay, or worse,"he admitted, "But it wasn't because I was out at some party."  
  
Peter looked mildly surprised, though Blaine wasn't sure whether it was by the statement or the tone of his voice, and he leaned back a bit, crossing his legs as he regarding Blaine slowly. He took a long sip of tea, then asked, "Where were you, then?"  
  
"On a date with the world's most perfect girl," Blaine stated dejectedly. She was never going to accept his apology, not with how mad she was when she left. And she definitely would never marry anyone who would behave like he had.  
  
"Ahh," Peter replied, nodding as though he understood the problem exactly now. Blaine hoped that might mean he had answers and a way to fix this. "What happened?" he asked the question like he knew what Blaine would say but wanted to force him to admit it.  
  
So he did.  
  
"I met her on Thursday, and Ijust couldn't stop thinking about her. I took her out tonight, and everything was perfect. Until we kissed, and... _nothing_. But Ithought there was no way it could be something wrong with her - she's amazing, and Istarted to worry we weren't as made for each other as Ithought. A guy needs to be able to like kissing his wife, right? How else will there be kids and a family one day? So I thought maybe I was so used to being drunk that Ijust didn't remember what kissing a girl feels like, and-"  
  
"And you drank," Peter concluded evenly, and Blaine nodded, looking away. "Because you wanted to be sure the problem wasn't with her." He nodded again - it sounded so dumb when Peter said it like that, so  _silly_. "Did you kiss her drunk?"  
  
"Until she got mad at me and stormed off."  
  
"But it felt good kissing her until that point?" When Blaine nodded, Peter uncrossed his legs and sat forward, placing his cup and saucer on the tray to lean elbows-on-knees as he said, "That's because she isn't the problem, Blaine." His tone was even, caring, and so  _sincere_  - Peter really did want to help him.  
  
Overwhelmed by both relief and nervousness at what the help might entail, Blaine nodded gravely. "The drinking, I know-"  
  
"Is a symptom, Peter concluded, and Blaine looked up in surprise.  
  
"What do you mean?" he asked slowly, not u nderstanding but wary of the accusation of having symptoms. Any he had were pushed very far down and held in check. They didn't impact his life because he didn't let them - that way, even if he was sick, he could take solace in the fact that he was asymptomatic.  
  
He knew it was a small thing, but it was the difference between a difficult case and one that had hope for a happy ending, and that was all the difference.  
  
"I meant that the drinking is  _a_  problem, to be sure, but it's not  _the_  problem. The 'problem,' as I assume you understand it, is that you aren't interested in girls. At least not when you're not so drunk you can't stand up straight. So you drink a little, and you sing a little, and you drink a little more, and before the end of the night you're cuddled up against a half-naked girl and thinking everything is great." He said it all so calmly, as though he was almost bored by the facts he was laying out, but Blaine was fighting panic. How did Peter  _know_  all that? How dare he say- or imply-...or think he was so smart about-... When Blaine couldn't form a quick retort, Peter stated - lest Blaine have missed the point - "The problem isn't that you drink, or even how much. It's that you think you have to because otherwise you can't be the playboy you think you're meant to be."  
  
Blaine swallowed hard. When Peter said it like  _that_ , it sounded both raunchy and deceptively simple, but it was neither; he knew that from experience. But that couldn't be all there was to it. It just couldn't be. Because if that were the case...he couldn't stop drinking without losing all ability to find someone else and be connected to other people, and he couldn't do that. Absolutely not.  
  
"I wanted to marry Evelyn," he stated with absolute certainty. "I still do, but I'm pretty sure she'll hang up if I try to call her again."  
  
"You wanted the things you thought she could give you," Peter concluded, his tone gentle but confident. Blaine hated how at-ease the man could look while he himself felt like he wanted to be anywhere but there. "Family. Normalcy. Not feeling so alone and different all the time."  
  
Blaine swallowed hard. That sounded so callous, like he'd been using her - and he  _hadn't_. "You're wrong,"he stated. "She's beautiful and witty and we understand each other. I would be happy with her - and proud to marry a girl like her."  
  
"Except for the part where you'd have to be trashed for the ceremony so that when the minister said 'You may now kiss the bride,' you could actually go through with it," Peter observed dryly. Before Blaine could manage an indignant reponse, Peter asked, "Why do you need a girl, Blaine?"  
  
Blaine blinked, eyebrows knitting together. On one hand, it was an incredibly simple question: He was 22, almost 23 now, and didn't have a wife or fiance or long-term girlfriend. Unless he waited until after he was out of school and took a wife who was younger by a couple years, he needed to start finding someone now. No doubt there would be girls waiting for him at his parents' Christmas party this year, and he guaranteed not oneo f them could hold a candle to Evelyn. They would all be from the same awful, cold layer of society from which he'd narrowly escaped, with fathers in suits and mothers in party dresses and an employee making Christmas dinner...and all of them would want to stay there while he wanted to run for the hills.  
  
At the same time, the answer was even more complicated. How was he supposed to explain to Peter what having the right girl could do for him? Not just any girl, but one he could love the way he was supposed to? One who could make him feel like the luckiest man alive instead of a physically and morally ill degenerate? Of course he needed a girl for that - and one girl in particular. But Peter didn't seem like he would have anything to do with that answer, not the way he said people could say anything about him that was true - including the perversions.  
  
All of which meant he needed a simple, more fundamental reply. "Because that's what all men need," he stated. It was true: all men needed a woman to share his life with. Men like him just needed one for a bigger reason as well, and it was harder to find one.  
  
"Not true," Peter replied. "Some men need m-"  
  
"How can you just  _say_  that?" Blaine demanded.  
  
"Because it's true," Peter stated, like it was the most obvious thing in the world. "Because some of the great men in the history of the world have needed, sought, and obtained the romantic and sexual love of a man."  
  
" _That_ certainly isn't true," Blaine replied, rolling his eyes at the ridiculous, desperate assertion. "And even if it were-"  
  
"It is," Peter replied.  
  
"Even if it  _were_ ," Blaine repeated, "something being true doesn't mean you should say it."  
  
Peter rolled his eyes, the polite and dapper gentleman vanishing for a moment as he groaned. "I  _hate_  when people say that. Why shouldn't we? Why shouldn't people just be honest? You should be able to tell people how you feel - but no one does. We all dance around the truth like it'll burn us, like it's a field of hot coals. It's awful."  
  
The way Peter said it - so genuinely frustrated at a basic reality of the world they lived in - was surprising but not nearly as surprising as the words out of his mouth and the conviction with which he used them, as though absolute honesty was an absolute right no matter the consequences. "Because sometimes - most of the time - it does more harm than good," Blaine stated.  
  
"Who does it hurt to stay silent?"  
  
"Exactly," Blaine replied.  
  
"No, I meant-" Peter shook his head slightly. A faint bemused smile crossed his features as he leaned back on the couch, eyes roaming over Blaine as he observed, "You're from the Midwest."  
  
Blaine's eyes narrowed in confusion and surprise. "Yes," he replied slowly, not sure what that had to do with anything or, more importantly, what Peter planned on doing with that information.  
  
"Family's from a ritzy suburb, just far enough outside a big city to forget that there's more than just fancy parties and opera there?"  
  
Blaine didn't know what the last part meant, exactly, but he admitted, "Just outside Columbus."  
  
Peter smiled a little more, gesturing toward himself as he stated, "Outside Chicago. It's a very Midwestern thing, not saying what other people don't want to hear. Even the English are more blunt, and they like to make it sound as non-insulting as possible even though everyone understands what they're saying. It's so unhealthy. It leads to, well, people like you," he said with a piteous smile.  
  
Blaine stiffened. "Why on earth would a person go around announcing that they're a sufferer of a psychosocial disorder that, if untreated and unsuppressed, brings nothing but unhappiness, institutionalization, and early death."  
  
Peter's eyes widened as he sighed softly. "Oh, my dear boy," he murmured sadly, and Blaine wasn't sure which confused him more: the fondness and regret, or the way Peter sounded like he thought he was so much older than Blaine. "No wonder you're so convinced you need a girl, if that's what you think happens to men like us."  
  
Blaine bristled, both at Peter's use of "like  _us_ " and at the way he so patronizingly dismissed everything Blaine had heard and seen and  _known_  for as long he could remember. "I don't just think it," he replied shortly. "My father treats them. I see it all the time."  
  
Peter seemed surprised but tried to mask it, nodding as he acknowledged, "The old psychiatric guard. But you do know that's not all that exists for us, don't you? You only think there can't be anything else because your father tells you so."  
  
"Everyone tells me so," Blaine corrected.  
  
"Everyone can be wrong," Peter stated confidently, with a gleam of pride in his eye. "Fathers especially. Middle-age sets them in their ways and they think the world is the same as it was 20, 30 years ago. It's not, of course, and it never will be again, but they base everything they know on something that hasn't existed in decades. Wy do we listen to men stuck so far in the past? No wonder things like integration are so dangerous to them - they've been passing down a 30-year-old version o freality for centuries. It may as well be 1700 with fewer corsets down there. That's who 'everyone' is, Blaine. So the next generation grows up believing what their fathers say, and the next, and the next..." He shook his head sadly. "It's the same everywhere, too. No one decides for themselves what parts of our forefathers' views to throw out, everyone just inches toward it individually until eventually there are enough people to make up a new thing that 'everyone' believes. And so the world turns at a sickeningly glacial pace." He sighed deeply, staring absently into space as his finger slid along the rim of his teacup. "We have to decide it all for ourselves, Blaine. All of right-and-wrong, all fo truth and lies. It's all subjective, and it all changes too slowly to just follow the person in front of you. We have to be the ones who change it."  
  
Blaine stared at him, trying to process what Peter was saying. "Isn't that kind of dangerous?" he asked. "If there's no agreement about what's right and wrong, it would be like anarchy."  
  
"There is ground in between what we have no and a violent hedonistic wildnerness," Peter laughed softly. "But if people decide for themselves, there can be change -  _real_  change."  
  
"Like desegregation," Blaine nodded.  
  
"And repeal of the sodomy law."  
  
Blaine laughed, and when Peter shot him a dirty look, he said, "I'm sorry, that's just pretty far-fetched, don't you think? No amount of people forming their own opinion is going to mean giving people with sexual diseases the right to do whatever they want."  
  
"It's going to happen soon in the UK," Peter stated.  
  
"What do you mean?"  
  
"I mean they're going to decriminalize homosexual behaviour for everyone over the age of consent," he stated, and Blaine searched his face for any sign of humour or irony but found none.  
  
"Don't be ridiculous. They don't pass laws letting the criminally insane do whatever they feel the urge to do. A schizophrenic still can't murder someone because their illness makes them think they've been told to," Blaine replied dismissively.  
  
The piteous look was back again, but sadder this time. "Because we're not dangerous," Peter stated pointedly. He leaned forward to place his hand on Blaine's knee, and Blaine shifted uncomfortably at the touch. Peter tilted his his head until his eyes were locked on Blaine's, which made him even less comfortable. "And we're not sick."  
  
Then why did he  _feel_  so sick all the time? He wanted to ask. If Peter - and the boy who had tried to convince him of the same thing once - were right, why did he always feel so awful and wrong? But instead he asked, "Then why is it in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual?"  
  
"For the same reason that schools and doctors try to force children to stop being left-handed even though they can't help it and they're not hurting anyone," he replied with a hint of sarcasm but not much. "The same reason the Salem Witch Trials happened. Because people are afraid of what they don't understand, and so they try to force everyone to be like them. To walk like them, dress like them..." Blaine managed to choke out a laugh on that one because clearly Peter had disregarded that particular pressure. Peter smiled at the respons and continued. "In the UK, they had a growing prison population of men arrested on homosexuality and prostitution charges, including some high-profile men. Lord Montague was a member of Parliament. So they put together a committee to examine the law against buggery - that's what they call it there - and after interviewing witnesses over the course of something in the neighbourhood of two months - everyone from police chiefs to psychiatrists to people like us - the conclusion that 14 of the 15 members came to was that it should be decriminalized because-...oh, I forget the quote. Let me find it." He stood and moved quickly over to a shelf by the window, skimming the volumes with his finger a moment before plucking out a thin paperback. He flipped through dog-earred pages until he found what he was looking for. "Ah. Here it is. 'Homosexuality cannot legitimately be regarded as a disease, because in many cases it is the only symptom and is compatible with full mental health in other respects.'" Peter flipped the book closed. "You see? Just because people have thought it was a disease for the last hundred years or so doesn't mean it's actually an illness."  
  
Blaine felt queasier than ever as Peter read the quote. He'd never heard of this committee, but it sounded like one of the reports Kurt had used to try to convince him that what they were doing - what they  _were_  - wasn't wrong. He had tried to believe it, if only because some part of him selfishly wanted to think Kurt was a beautiful, rare, amazing creature instead of being just as ill as the rest of them. Homosexuality wasn't beautiful; it was destructive. It ripped through lives like a tornado and destroyed everything it came in contact with - homes, lives, families, careers...and the other parts that remained intact were rendered empty surrounded by so much devastation. And Kurt was proof of that; how it had ended...  
  
But he didn't know how to argue that to Peter. He didn't have the energy to try to combat whatever counterargument the book in Peter's hands would try to provide. So he went instead for the easier attack: "It's been a disease a lot longer than that," he stated, sitting back in his chair a little. "For as long as we've known it existed - and even before that, it was still an illness, just an undiagnosable one."  
  
"Au contraire," Peter replied. "First of all, it wasn't always a disease. Before modern psychiatry, it was simply a crime; before it was a crime, it was a sin which was only important if you believed it impacted your imortal soul - or if you cared what the religious leaders said about you. Sometimes it's been an ethical issue, sometimes a practical population growth issue, and sometimes something open and notorious to the point of being almost celebrated." When Blaine looked down and scoffed, Peter asked, "Do you know what some people call it?" Blaine raised his eyebrows at the open-ended question. He knew plenty of things people called his condition, but none of them were especially relevant - or kind. "The affliction of the Greeks. The Greek Curse. Because in ancient Greece, people like us weren't pushed into the shadows or forced to be ashamed. Relationships between men and younger men were thought to be the most important because that was how teenage boys learned to become an adult Greek man. It wasn't just carnal, it was about love and trust. They even had an elite separate military unit, the Sacred Band of Thebes, just for the men and their lovers. Once the lover grew up, he took on a young lover of his own, and so it went - for  _centuries_ , Blaine. Generations after generations of Greek men loving one another openly, in front of and with the blessing of the entire polis."  
  
Blaine tried to imagine it - he really did. He tried just as he'd tried to believe in Kurt's utopian New York fantasy, where homosexuals threw galas surrounded by family and friends and had marriages to other men and otherwise lived safe, open, happy lives. He knew it was silly - and dangerous - to get lulled into that sort of fantasy, but for a moment it seemed so nice to think of a picture as bright as the one Peter was painting: men embracing openly while still able to be brave warriors, heavily decorated and highly respected...of course, if Kurt were there, he probably would have made one of his awkward jokes about how the Greeks  _did_  create the sport in which naked men grabbed one another and rolled around together, so it shouldn't have surprised them...  
  
He winced, trying to get the sound of the boy's adorably uncertain laugh out of his head. Most of the time he could go days - weeks even - without thinking of him, but today he just kept coming back to the face and voice he wished he could forget entirely. Between the song, the way Peter sounded like him now, making the same points and arguments and trying to make it seem so much more enticing...But sadly for both optimistic boys, Blaine reminded himself, a bunch of stories about a civilization that had been destroyed some 2,000 years ago didn't do anyone any good. It didn't even mean that the Greeks were right about it being acceptable. There were civilizations that engaged in cannibalism. Most of the world had believed that slavery was a good thing, too. Greeks running around in togas had been influential on life in other ways, but that one...  
  
Peter saw it differently, Blaine supposed sadly. He was studying classics; his whole life was in books - the same way Kurt's was in musicals and magazines. He didn't know what the medical profession held for them - neither boy could know. Blaine supposed he couldn't begrudge Peter's naivete, but instead stated reluctantly, "Unfortunately, unless the other room has a time machine, acceptance 5,000 years ago doesn't change things now."  
  
"It's not just ancient Greece," Peter replied. "There have been kings throughout history - they called their lovers their 'favourites,' but everyone knew what they meant. Germans use the euphemism 'to Florence.' Martin Luther singled out the Turks, of all people. People like us are everywhere - artists and writers and rulers and scientists. You know, Alan Turing created computers - we couldn't have NASA without-"  
  
"People like y-...like  _us_ , are sick," Blaine interrupted, frustrated. This wasn't helping him at all with why he'd come. "We end up in an institution, in jail, in therapy for the rest of our lives,  _or_  we find a great girl we can love. And I have to go win mine back, so do you have any advice for that?"  
  
Peter paused in thought, then stood. "Do you need more coffee?"  
  
"No, thank you."  
  
Peter nodded and began to move around the living room, looking at each bookshelf and tugging out some of the titles, debating others aloud as he worked. "Hemingway, maybe? F. Scott- Blaine, have you ever read The Great Gatsby?"  
  
Blaine blinked, not sure what the connection was. "Junior year of high school."  
  
Peter considered, then put that one back, continuing around the room. "Marlowe is a must, and Dorian Gray, and-...hm, what else should we- Oh! Berlin Stories, of course!" As he moved around the shelves, his enthusiasm grew, smile lighting up with each book he pulled out. "Foucault may be a little much so soon, but can't hurt...let's see, what contemporary stories- this works well in the end, and the Gore Vidal..." By the time made his way around the room, Peter had an armload of books - Blaine thought at least 15, though the way they were stacked made it hard to count. He set them on the coffee table triumphantly with a broad smile as he said, "See? And this is just authors. If you give me a day or two, I can get you a stack of records at least this big of composers."  
  
Blaine just blinked, not sure what to say, where to even begin. There were a lot of books there, to be sure, and if they  _were_  all like them, that would be impressive...but if they were like that, he would have heard about it by now. Hemingway most certainly had nothing to say on the subject, not as strong and manly of a war writer as he was. As for the rest, Blaine didn't really know who any of them even were. "I...don't know what to say," he admitted quietly. "I don't see how this is meant to help me win back the girl of my dreams."  
  
Peter's grin faded, his mouth settling in a grim line. His shoulders sank in disappointment, and he began to straighten the books into a neat stack, fingers moving fussily over the spine of each with a sort of sad reverance for the pile. Blaine guessed he shouldn't have been surprised; books clearly meant a lot to the man. "They won't," he replied honestly, quiet and blunt, and Blaine nodded, holding back a sigh. Peter's flight of fantasy was well-meant but wasn't going to help him accomplish what he needed. Even if the Greeks and the Turks and a handful of Italians were like them, that didn't mean they were right...and it didn't mean he could afford not to win back the one girl he'd ever felt perfect with.  
  
"I should go," Blaine said quietly, feeling utterly defeated. "It's late."  
  
"Yeah," Peter replied just as quietly. "Are you okay to get home?"  
  
Blaine nodded. He didn't feel drunk anymore, but he was still confident he could get home in one piece. "Thanks." He stood, straightening his sweater vest, and started for the door.  
  
"Blaine?" He turned back as Peter called to him. "Take some of these, would you?" The look on the man's face was so eager, so...yearning to help. Blaine didn't see what good it would do, but he did at least owe the guy for not turning him away at whatever hour he had arrived. And for trying to help, even if he was tragically misguided. Blaine smiled faintly and nodded, and Peter picked the top five books from the stack, crossing to him and handing them over. Blaine took the books, pausing awkwardly as Peter gazed down at him with a look of undisguised pity and regret. "Come over anytime. If you want to talk about any of the books - or to get more, I have plenty." Blaine smiled as he looked down - that much was obvious. "Take care of yourself, okay? And stay away from drinking - it really will kill you one of these times."  
  
Blaine shifted, not used to that kind of overt concern, certainly not directed at him. "I'll try," he promised sincerely, and Peter offered a weak smile in return. Holding the books closer, he turned and left to begin walking slowly home.  
  
*****  
He couldn't sleep.  
  
It had been the longest day he could remember in a long time, and he knew that staying awake wouldn't help his outlook any. But no matter how long Blaine stared at the ceiling, it didn't seem to help.  
  
What was he supposed to do  _now_? He had hoped that if he went to see Peter, he would be able to leave with a strategy for what exactly he needed to change or do to get Evelyn back. Instead he had a stack of books on his nightstand, information about ancient civilizations that wasn't at all helpful, and too many memories of a boy he didn't want to think about.  
  
He couldn't remember the last time he'd laid awake on a Saturday night. Actually, when he thought about it, he couldn't remember the last time he could remember a Saturday night - aside from the previous weekend, of course. Usually he was so busy being out at whatever the week's most raucous party was, drinking and dancing the night away, that by the time he got home he fell into bed and...well, okay, passed out more than anything. If he weren't so angry at himself for drinking in the first place...and if it weren't for the fact that the reason he couldn't turn off his brain was entirely because of alcohol...then he might have wandered out in search of the nearest liquor store. He knew of several in walking distance, though they weren't open this time of night anyway. If only Peter hadn't taken all the beer out of his fridge-...  
  
No, he sighed to himself as he rolled over again, trying to get comfortable enough to fall asleep. That had been a good thing. The last thing he needed to do was fall back into that particular destructive pattern. Then nothing he could do would win Evelyn back.  
  
For all he knew, that ship had sailed already. No amount of music could take back the way he'd pushed her - or fix the look on her face as she stormed away into the night. He could try, get the Mendicants together and find her on-campus somewhere...he bet one of them knew her, since she was in the music department. Surely one of the guys had a class with her and could track her down so they could perform for her-  
  
He sighed again. She didn't want to see him again, certainly not soon. Though maybe if he gave her a few days to cool down...maybe the next performance could be for her. He did have a week to create a great arrangement and teach the group. If anyone would respond to a serenade that expressed his sincere regrets over the evening, it would be Evelyn.  
  
Or Kurt.  
  
God, there was that name again, that face, that boy he wanted so badly to never think about again- he turned over again, harder this time as he flopped down on his pillow, glaring at the darkness.   
  
It didn't take a genius to know that he and Peter would have gotten along perfectly - they said all the same things, gave all the same justifications to explain away their illnesses as simply some difference that didn't carry any medical or moral deficit. And they would have spent a lot of time comparing wardrobes, Blaine thought to himself with a choked-off laugh; Kurt did love a good hat, and Peter's collection of fedoras alone would've been enough to pique his interest...plus all the wingtips and general sense of differentiating himself through clothing... They would have ganged up on him, he was sure of it. There was a feeling of regret that hit him suddenly, a sad smile creeping over his face; they would have ganged up on him to try to convince him. Even if he could never believe them, it would have been tempting - at least for a little while.  
  
He wondered if Peter knew anything about what New York was like. If maybe anything Kurt had said could be real; if Kurt was living in some modern-day version of ancient Greece where strong, manly men took young, smooth-faced boys to mentor... Kurt wouldn't like that, he thought to himself. His fantasies all involved dapper dinner parties, not elite fighting forces. He wanted to sing and dance, to throw grand balls and be at home with a man who could love him.  
  
When put that way, it did sound simpler than what the Greeks had, something that should be easier to obtain...except Blaine was sure it wasn't.  
  
Was it?  
  
Sighing, he reached over to turn on the nightstand lamp and pulled the stack of books into easy view. He still didn't believe what Peter said had an impact on the reality of their lives and their shared condition, but maybe...maybe there was something in there that would help. He couldn't help but be at least a  _little_  curious, with how eagerly the eccentric young man had whisked through the room, pulling book after book from the shelves to show him... _something_. Maybe it was worth taking a look.  
  
He had no idea what any of the books were; Christopher Marlowe sounded familiar, he thought maybe he remembered from a lesson on Shakespeare and his contemporaries. He'd done well in English but iambic pentameter would never quite be his choice of reading material. Nor was French philosophy, whoever this Foucault fellow was. He had read Oscar Wilde before but didn't see what the playwright who had created "The Importance of Being Earnest" had to do with any of the things Peter had been trying to explain to him a few hours earlier. Which left him with two paperbacks:  The Berlin Stories, and something entitled City of Night. He picked up the latter, flipping to see the synopsis on the back-  
  
It was about New York.  
  
Blaine swallowed hard. He should put the book down, he knew that, he was sure it wasn't anything relevant to answering the questions he had and would do nothing but lead him back down a road he couldn't afford to go down again. But at the same time, he was so curious. Was Kurt right about it all? Was the City of Night the same kind of beautiful utopian world the boy had sworn it would be?  
  
...Was he happy there?  
  
He flipped the book over and opened the front cover, spying the copyright date: it was only a year old. So whatever was in this novel was what he would have seen had he gone on the fool's errand Kurt wanted. He honestly wasn't sure whether he wanted to be right or not about it all.   
  
Drawing in a deep breath, he settled in against his pillow and flipped to the start of the Prologue, then began to read


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings in this part only for light reference to abuse (characters discussing its occurrence in a novel).

Blaine pounded on the door. He felt like he could barely breathe, and his fingers clenched tightly around the paperback in his left hand. Why would he- what was Peter  _thinking_? Who gave a person a book like that? Who read- who  _wrote_  a book like that?   
  
Who  _did_  things like that?  
  
No answer came, and Blaine knocked harder. He had to ask him- had to yell at him for giving it, or- or  _something_ ,but he had to see Peter right this second and get answers or he might explode. His chest felt too tight, the muscles in his limbs coiled and ready to spring into action - though Blaine didn't know what action that could be. Storming over here had helped his restlessness only a little and given him time to dwell and get angrier - at himself, at Peter, at whoever this John Rechy guy was who had committed such atrocious behaviour to the page-  
  
He heard grumbling on the other side of the door and then it opened to reveal Peter. The boy's pajamas were slightly askew, the neckline of his silk pajama shirt falling diagonally across his crisp white undershirt; his hair was a wreck, especially at the back, sticking up at every conceivable angle. Such an appearance wouldn't have been noteworthy on most guys Blaine knew, but on the dapper gentleman he'd never seen look remotely disheveled - hell, that he'd never seen without a hat in public, like the rules of another century would dictate - it felt... _wrong_. Peter wasn't supposed to look like that.  
  
He wasn't supposed to do a lot of things.  
  
"Blaine?" he asked blearily, blinking twice to try to clear his vision, and it was only then that Blaine realized it wasn't late yet. Or it was  _very_  late, he wasn't sure which at this point. He hadn't slept since- god, had it only been 20 hours or so? A little more, probably, but not much. He couldn't guarantee how long it had been since he'd left Peter's with the armful of books and no plan to get Evelyn back, but he was sure it hadn't been many.   
  
"I woke you," he said slowly as the realization dawned on him.  
  
"Did I strike you as someone who is usually up at-" Peter leaned over to more easily see the living room clock, then stood upright again as he concluded, "- half past 5 on a Sunday?"  
  
Blaine swallowed hard, not sure what to say. The antsiness and frustration from earlier were still there, bubbling just beneath a layer of enough politeness and social training to suppress everything else - at least for a few minutes. "I'm sorry," he replied evenly, feeling almost robotic. "I didn't realize what time it was." It was true, but he wasn't sure whether he could honestly say he would have been able to stay home a few extra hours if he had known.  
  
Something about that response seemed to strike Peter as odd, and he peered more intently at Blaine in the dim pre-dawn light. "What happened?"  
  
"Nothing," he replied, but the word was forced. Something had happened, and Peter knew exactly what that something was. Several things had happened, actually, and the boy knew them all, but the latest- "Except why in the world would you give me this?" The words tumbled out of him in an angry rush, eyes narrowing as his fingers tightened again around the spine of the paperback.   
  
"Do you insist on having this conversation on my front step, or would you like to come in?" Peter asked, almost disinterested in the answer as he stepped back from the door and nodded toward the living room. Blaine followed, but unlike the previous times he'd come he felt no more at-ease entering the space; this time, it felt tiny - brimming with books that held horrible things that Peter would try to make him read because he was twisted enough to believe that anything in there was helpful - or  _good_ , even, from the way the boy talked about it all. There must be thousands of books here, and even if they didn't all talk about the condition- even if they weren't  _all_  like this one...there were at least a dozen books still stacked on the coffee table that Peter had wanted to give him.   
  
They looked so unassuming sitting there, like their owner had just been searching for a particular fact or quote and moved on to something else, but to Blaine they felt threatening. Menacing, even. Like at any moment they might leap off the table and show him more evidence of the destruction and devastation of their condition.  
  
Peter emerged a few minutes later, holding only a cup of coffee for himself. "You don't need any more coffee," he stated by way of explanation. His eyes were still drowsily narrow but plenty focused as he sat in the wingback chair, eyeing the anxious boy standing in the middle of his living room. "Now. Would you like to tell me what's going on? You were just here, you can't have gotten drunk again."  
  
"No," Blaine replied irritatedly. Not everything came down to alcohol, and besides- "Nowhere's open."  
  
"Which was how I knew. And because anyone who was trying to stay sober wouldn't have gone out and rebought the beer I removed from his apartment." Blaine wasn't sure whether that meant Peter believed him or not - or if it mattered or not. "So what scared you?" He leaned forward to peer at the book clutched in Blaine's hand. "Oh, Blaine," he sighed, shaking his head. "Why did you have to start with that one? Look, I know it doesn't seem glamourous - it's not. There's no way around the fact that he's selling himself to less-than-reputable old men who have significant issues in their own lives. But I wanted you to see the parts about other communities out there. Did you at least get to the part about Darling Dolly Dane? She's a bit much, I'll admit, but the world-"  
  
Blaine's eyes widened as Peter tried to explain away the book and why it wasn't so bad, all while describing things almost as awful as what he'd read - probably worse, actually. Because if Kurt was the protagonist- he swallowed hard, feeling sick suddenly at the image of the beautiful boy he'd known...the stunningly handsome, self-assured, self-righteous boy letting sick old men touch him.   
  
"...You didn't get that far, did you?" Peter surmised as he saw Blaine's reaction.  
  
Blaine shook his head. "I didn't get past the prologue."  
  
"The prologue? What was so wrong with that?" Peter asked, blinking slowly.  
  
"It was awful!"  
  
"Of course it was, it's meant to set the stage for his escape into the city. No one  _wants_  to grow up in West Texas, but someone has to be, and he runs away for a reason."  
  
The isolation of the dessert hadn't been the bad part, not remotely. Not as far as Blaine was concerned. Tumbleweeds were a depressing image, as was the idea of the type of rural poverty the narrator and his family had lived in, but that wasn't any worse than the John Steinbeck he'd read in high school and college. Those were manageable; he wasn't one of the characters in that scenario, he was a million miles away from them. None of the stories about the dust bowl or life in the Wild West had a disturbed father whose homosexuality led him to do unspeakable things to his own  _son_.  
  
He'd heard stories of severely ill men from his own father for his entire life, but nothing had come close to the narrator's experiences: his dad and any of his dad's male friends who wanted would call the narrator onto their laps and  _touch_  him, or ask him to touch them, or- Blaine swallowed hard.  
  
He wanted to be able to write the character off entirely as a monster, but until he'd read that he'd felt a kinship for the man, who had so wanted to be a musician and ended up in an empty marriage in the middle of nowhere with no music but sporadic lessons to neighbourhood children. Blaine could understand that; he feared that. Especially after his semester in the business department - a world without music, trying to make ends meet, in a silent house? He couldn't imagine anything more terrible. He ached for the man.  
  
And then the man was even more disturbed than his son who ended up in big cities as a prostitute.   
  
It was almost certainly the father's fault, Blaine realized slowly with a queasy feeling in his stomach. The narrator wouldn't have needed to go off and do that, wouldn't have been sick at all probably, if his father hadn't made him that way. Not all illness came from another person like that - otherwise how would he have gotten it? - but contagion was common, especially among younger, more naive men who trusted the homosexual man-  
  
Like Kurt had trusted him.  
  
He felt like he might faint and moved over to the couch as quickly as he could, sinking down onto it heavily. He could hear Peter ask if he was okay, but he couldn't respond - and he wasn't. Not at all. Not realizing what he was.  
  
He wasn't the lonely protagonist staring across the barren land of the southwest and yearning for something more; he was the father, the man desperately wanting music and feeling and manipulating people around him in his quest for boys whose innocence he could steal. He wasn't the one who ran off to New York to live an unsavoury, dangerous life; Kurt was. He was the one who ruined-  
  
"Blaine. What was awful?" Peter asked gently but insistently, but he didn't know how to begin to answer that. The father was awful. _He_  was awful. Everything he had done- the way he'd left Ohio had been awful. The entire year before he left Ohio.   
  
"The father," he managed finally, and Peter's eyes widened.  
  
"I'm sorry," he replied with overwhelming aching sincerity. "I had no idea - I would never have given you that book if I had. Of course you don't have to talk about-"  
  
"What do you mean?" Blaine asked, confused  
  
"I would have picked a different book if I'd known your father..." Peter trailed off, and Blaine almost choked as he realized what Peter was getting at.  
  
"No," he replied quickly, shaking his head. "He never- he wouldn't." He couldn't think of a single thing that would make his father less comfortable than that, and the idea was nauseating on every level he could imagine. "No, he-... _I_ -..." He tried to find the words, but Peter watching him closely wasn't putting him any more at ease "I identified with the father more than the narrator," he began, and Peter nodded.  
  
"The narrator can be a little out there - especially later. In the prologue he's mostly talking about rotting dogs, that's not something most people would connect with," he acknowledged with a kind, fond smile, but the way Blaine wanted to see that expression more made his stomach roil uncomfortably.  
  
"But he's a monster. He's disturbed, and his symptoms make him-" He couldn't even say it, but the way Peter sat back in his chair in contemplation made Blaine think he might understand anyway - at least get what he was trying to say, even if he didn't understand it from personal experience.  
  
He hoped Peter didn't understand it from personal experience; that would make him even more uncomfortable here, and he was already plenty skittish around him.   
  
"He's not a monster," Peter replied. "He did awful things, yes, but that doesn't mean he was evil. I see him as more tragic than anything. Pitiable, even."  
  
"Severe cases are almost always pitiable. At least I think so," Blaine agreed, nodding. Even his father thought so, on some level; that was why he wanted to help them so badly. Seeing men struggle so hard against the illnesses they had never asked for or wanted...  
  
"Ah- no," Peter half-chuckled awkwardly. "That's not why. He's tragic because he lost everything that would have given his life meaning or happiness. He could have been a musician in New York or LA or Chicago or some other city, where there were men his own age he could be close to and get physical and emotional comfort from; instead, he suppressed everything he felt, everything he loved, and wound up in a loveless marriage in the middle of nowhere, with no music; no joy; no  _anything_ , to the point where he felt compelled to take pleasure from his son. If he'd been honest with himself about who he was and what he wanted - what he  _needed_  - from life, it all could have been avoided. But he took a more conventional path and ended up broken, empty... as desolate as where they lived."  
  
Blaine swallowed hard. Those were his options? Give in to a life of being unrepentantly ill, or live a life with absolutely nothing that felt right and fall prey to even worse urges than the ones that would tell him to kiss a grown man? "Maybe I wouldn't have to give up music," he ventured to himself. "Evelyn said music was just what made sense- if I can get her back...she wouldn't make me give it up. She would want the same thing: a house full of music and laughter and warmth and-"  
  
"And babies," Peter replied dully, and Blaine looked up suddenly, unaware he'd spoken aloud. "And to kiss every so often, one assumes."  
  
"I could," Blaine stated firmly. "Now that I know that's what a kiss is meant to feel like-"  
  
"Of course it's not!" Peter almost laughed but sounded more incredulous than anything. "A good kiss is amazing. It leaves you breathless and giddy and aching to stay close to the person. It's not something you can tolerate while sober in order to keep a girl you could maybe like one day." Blaine swallowed hard as he could tell what Peter's next question was before he even asked it: "Have you ever felt that, Blaine?"  
  
It wasn't inherently a threatening question, but the knowledge that if he said 'no' Peter might take it upon himself to demonstrate made him uneasy. Even more unsettling was the feeling that if he said anything other than 'yes' it would be a lie that the perceptive young man would be able to see through in an instant. He shifted, trying to avoid direct eye contact, but Peter remained settled in the wingback chair, legs crossed, eyes fixed firmly on Blaine as he awaited an answer.  
  
This wasn't fair, Blaine wanted to protest; it wasn't anyone's business, certainly not Peter's, and it wasn't the kind of thing he was under any obligation to answer to defend himself.  
  
Peter considered, then offered easily, "How about this - I'll answer first, then you answer. Okay?" Before Blaine could weigh the deal, Peter charged ahead with his own story. "His name was Jean-Luc; he lived down the hall from me my first year in the UK. He was the most beautiful Frenchman I had ever seen, with these entrancing pale green eyes... and his accent was really cute," he added with a grin that was almost shy; it was the closest to self-conscious Blaine had seen him, but even now there was a bit of pride in his voice at having kissed the adorable French student. "We were together for about six months, until he had to go back to Paris. Then last year was Edwin: that only lasted a couple weeks, but he kissed like he had spent years doing nothing but. Brilliant mouth, that one had." He grinned to himself, as though remembering a particular moment with the man, blissful but private.  
  
He'd never heard anyone talk about boys like that before. Like kissing one was nothing but extremely pleasant, without remorse or any sense of turmoil about it. Just the way guys talked about girls they used to go with.  
  
"So. What about you, Blaine?" Peter prompted when Blaine didn't immediately volunteer, and he shifted forward a little, like he couldn't wait to hear the answer.  
  
He wished he could say no. He wished he could say that he had no idea if Evelyn's kiss felt right (for non-drunk kisses) because he'd never felt anything better, anything like what Peter felt, but... he had. He hated that he could remember it so clearly: lying on his bed in his senior dorm, Kurt propped up against the pillows, while something - Judy Garland? No- Sound of Music that time, he reminded himself - had played on the turntable. Kurt had been singing that achingly sad song about being ordinary, and with that beautiful, clear voice of his... it had been like a siren's song - not quite so high, but just as deadly as far as Blaine was concerned. He had moved in and leaned up to kiss Kurt slowly, lightly- He'd been terrified, tried to pull back, and Kurt had followed him.  
  
Kurt always followed him when he ran.  
  
He remembered the feeling of Kurt's shirt under his hands as he pulled him close, trying to hold onto anything he could so he wouldn't lose what was left of his mind, but once their lips touched once, he couldn't get enough of it. He wanted more - so  _much_ more. Even as he felt sick inside at the knowledge that the kiss - and liking the kiss so much - meant he was worse off than he'd thought...it hadn't been enough to stop him that time.  
  
"Blaine?" Peter prompted again, more gently this time, as though he wanted an answer but mostly just wanted to shake him from his trance.  
  
He wanted to say no. He wanted to be able to say no or to leave or to-  
  
"Yes," he murmured, looking down.  
  
Peter's eyes widened and his mouth dropped open just a little at Blaine's admission, but a small, proud grin slowly crossed his face. "Who was he?" he asked, clearly testing the waters, seeing how far he could get the boy to go.  
  
"A wonderful boy I ruined," Blaine stated quietly, avoiding Peter's gaze. "He's in New York right now, doing who-knows-what, because I... had to get away from him. Because he represented everything I wasn't supposed to be." It was difficult to put into words; he'd never done it before. He'd never tried - not remotely. Who would he tell? Even if he could tell anyone about his malady, he didn't want to go around talking about the mistakes the malady had caused him to make.  
  
Were they mistakes? He asked himself again. Was coming out here wrong? Because judging from Peter's comments about the narrator's life in New York, he had to conclude that Kurt had been completely wrong about what the city would be like, so... really, he'd been smart to leave, hadn't he?  
  
If only that was why he'd left Ohio. If only he could say with a straight face that he had left because he knew for sure Kurt was wrong about the life they could have together.  
  
If only he'd actually been able to imagine a life together. He couldn't, even now - especially now. He could see a life with Evelyn, a half-century of Christmas dinners and summer barbecues and children and grandchildren- all of that made sense to him. All of those were obtainable, desirable goals. The things Kurt had talked about were just a flight of fantasy that would never exist anywhere outside the boy's mind.  
  
Why did Kurt have to insist on being so  _imaginative_  instead of realistic and practical? Why did Blaine have to be so attracted to the way he was so sure of himself and what he could -  _would_  - have in the future?   
  
That wasn't really it, Blaine reminded himself; it was the music. He should have known to run the second Kurt sang Over the Rainbow - he was already done-for as soon as the boy opened his mouth to sing with that beautiful, high, clear voice. But no; he'd gone and invited him to listen-  
  
...He really was the one who had pushed everything, wasn't he? Blaine realized sickly. He had spent four years thinking of Kurt as the one who drove their... whatever one would call a relationship between two men. He remembered Kurt pushing him toward New York with unceasing vision and enthusiasm of a world Blaine had never been able to believe in. He remembered Kurt insisting on dates - in a place that was never half as safe as the boy wanted to think it was. He remembered Kurt being the one who had initiated that damned near-kiss before Christmas that left him terrified and queasy all through break, sick with fear that he was even more wrong than he'd realized and that he was going to spend the rest of his life in an institution. But that wasn't remotely close to the whole story, was it? He'd kissed Kurt. He'd invited the boy to come listen to Judy Garland when he knew he was infatuated with his voice and his expressiveness. Hell, Kurt hadn't even known what a homosexual  _was_ when they'd met, and though he'd tried to keep quiet about what he knew because he was trying to protect the naive boy from all the horrors he knew awaited them...  _he_ had been the one who had pushed everything.  
  
He had been the one who left Kurt half-naked on a couch in the Commons after frantic fondling and kissing, then pulled out of the duet they were meant to sing because he couldn't bear to face him. He felt cold all over suddenly, and his stomach jerked at the memory; he grasped the arm of the couch tightly and hoped he wouldn't be sick as he had no idea where the bathroom was in Peter's apartment and he was sure the rug was too nice to clean up easily. He had- had  _used_  the boy in a flurry of fantasy and pleasure and then bolted and left him completely alone because he didn't want to deal with what all of it meant for his illness.  
  
Kurt had seemed older than him in so many ways; he was so strong and certain of who he was and what he wanted out of life when Blaine felt like he couldn't figure out anything except what he  _didn't_  want. But he was younger, and so naive...so  _trusting_. Kurt had had no idea what they were doing - he remembered glasz eyes staring up at him in wonder, as though trying to ask what on earth was happening and why it felt so good - and he had taken advantage of his naivete. He hadn't taught Kurt what awaited them if they continued on the path they were ambling along; he hadn't protected him from what they were, and he'd been the only one who could have.  
  
Peter waited for him to explain further, but he couldn't - he just  _couldn't_. How was he meant to admit any of that aloud? When he didn't speak up, Peter got the hint and nodded slightly. He set his coffee aside and leaned forward to look at Blaine, eyes glittering with sincerity and regret. "The only thing you're not supposed to be is what you're not," he stated in a quiet voice that quivered slightly with intensity, as though he were trying to be sure that if Blaine listened to only one thing he said ever again, that would be it. "There's no other 'should'; it's a matter of living authentically, honestly, and as truly as possible." Blaine worried for a moment that he'd spoken, that he'd let the entire story of his horrible short-lived romance tumble out, but Peter didn't look stricken enough for that. He tried to think back to the last thing he remembered saying- about how he'd kissed Kurt, and ruined him, and- right. About running away because Kurt was everything he wasn't supposed to be. Which meant the culmination of Peter's advice was to throw caution to the wind and be like Kurt. Like him. Like all the men who had been forced into his father's office in search of a cure while proclaiming to anyone they could that there was nothing wrong with them.  
  
It was a nice thought, Blaine supposed, but seemed even more fantastical than Kurt's image of a glittering New York full of elegant dinner parties thrown by cohabitating men. "I should go," he replied softly. When Peter simply nodded, he stood and gave the book a half-hearted toss onto the coffee table, wishing he could let go of everything that troubled him as easily as he'd let the paperback leave his hand and land with a quiet smack on the stack of other novels and references Peter wanted him to read. "I'm sorry for waking you. And I do appreciate the help - honestly." What he really appreciated was the attempt at help - he wasn't in any better place than he'd been before, but he wasn't going to say that after waking the poor man in the middle of the night. It would just be rude.  
  
"Come back anytime," Peter replied sincerely, though he didn't move from his chair. Blaine forced a faint smile and started for the door; when he was halfway there, Peter called across the short distance, "If you're reading again, start with the Berlin Stories. It's a little easier to get through." Blaine forced his smile wider, but he doubted he'd be reading any more of the books anytime soon.  
  
* * * * *  
  
It wasn't hard to track down Evelyn. He only had to ask two Mendicants before he found several who knew her - which, on some level, he knew probably didn't bode well for him because it meant the guys could easily find out just how badly he'd ruined his date - and Fitz had two different classes with her. He bragged that made it easy to stalk her, though Blaine objected to the term. It wasn't  _stalking_  her, it was just following her to try to get her to forgive him for being a jerk on Saturday.  
  
Her schedule wasn't hard to nail down; she had a block of classes in the music department on Wednesdays that would make her easy to find for much of the afternoon as long as she wasn't ditching, and she wasn't really the type to do that - she was a good student, and Blaine admired that about her even if he wasn't as good at it himself as he would have liked. That didn't give them a lot of time to learn a song, so he took a chance; the Beatles were easy to arrange and easier to learn because the songs already had a lead and plenty of harmonies and didn't have very complicated chord progressions. Besides, everyone knew them so he didn't have to worry about the guys learning the words in only three days. That helped move them along quickly, and though he felt bad about keeping the group in rehearsals three afternoons in a row, he hoped it would ultimately be worth it.  
  
Of all the people in the world, Evelyn would understand that he was trying to make it up to her. He hoped, anyway. He had thought about calling her on Sunday but hadn't been able to figure out what in the world he could say beyond how sorry he was - because he  _was_. He genuinely regretted it all, and if he could do it over again- but he had no idea how to convey that just picking up the phone. Luckily for him, he'd fallen for a girl who would understand this way just as well, maybe better.  
  
By the time 1:40 rolled around on Wednesday, Blaine was starting to get nervous. It had to work. It just had to. There was no other option; four straight days of Kurt bombarding his mind had left him ill-at-ease with everything but never more certain that Evelyn was his best chance to a normal, symptom-free life.   
  
A happy life. Wasn't that what he was meant to strive for - a life that was happy and meaningful for both of them?  
  
At 1:45, classes began to trickle out, the hallways filling slowly with music students, and Blaine stood a little taller to try to find her in the growing crowd. He and his backup singers would be easy to find if she were looking for them, but to his knowledge she wasn't; in fact, there was a chance she was trying not to see him. But finding a single girl in the growing sea of classmates-  
  
"There she is," Jerry grinned, pointing up onto the staircase where she was just beginning her descent, smiling and laughing with two friends. Even at this distance, she took Blaine's breath away - her grin was so easy, her eyes so bright... Blaine drew in a deep breath, walking toward the foot of the staircase, the Mendicants following him like a cluster of baby ducks after their mother. The crowd parted easily around them, more a function of their size than out of any kind of respect, but Blaine didn't care; he was too busy watching her come closer. Each step she took was sure, the click of her heel imperceptible with the ambient sounds around them. She grinned and shook her head at something one of the girls alongside her said, her hair tossing over her shoulder. He closed his eyes a moment and drew another slow breath to calm his nerves and gather strength from the music he was about to make, and when he opened them her eyes were locked on his.  
  
Her gaze was cold, mouth set in an irritated line. "What are you doing?" she asked as she landed on the lowest step. She was taller than him at that place and looked over his head at the boys organizing themselves into sections behind him.  
  
"Evelyn, I wanted to apologize for Saturday," he stated; he'd rehearsed this part, and that helped him ignore her friends as they covered their mouths to hide their embarrassed laughter. Evelyn wasn't laughing in the least. "I wanted to explain, but you know as well as I do that I'm not much with words, so I brought my friends here to help me sing my-"  
  
Before he could even complete his sentence, she was off the step and had grasped his forearm, tugging him toward a more secluded area - an alcove near one of the nearby classrooms. "What are you trying to do?" she demanded  
  
"Apologize," Blaine replied, a bit bewildered by her response. She should understand, she should appreciate-  
  
"No," she replied shortly. "I don't want to hear it. For one thing, I can guess what it would say - you're so sorry. You were drunk and didn't know what you were doing. It won't happen again. You're not usually like that, especially on a first date, and you want to take me out again to make it up to me." When Blaine sputtered a little to come up with a reply, she took advantage of the lack of a proper response to continue, "I'm not going out with you again. If there's one thing I hate more than a jerk, it's a jerk who disguises himself as a nice guy. I thought you were great - but I have no interest in going with someone who has to be drunk to be around me." She shook her head and turned to leave, glancing over her shoulder just long enough to add, "And don't ever try to use music to manipulate me like this again."  
  
"I wasn't-"  
  
"In public, with a group of boys backing you up, where all my friends can see? You thought it would be harder for me to say no when you sang, and that's just obnoxious. You really aren't sure of yourself at all without music to fall back on, are you?"  
  
And with that, she was gone.


	8. Chapter 8

  
By the next Thursday, there were four new Mendicants arrangements.  
  
Blaine knew he might have gone just a little overboard with them, but he couldn't help himself. What else was he meant to do? He couldn't go drinking anymore, which carried with it a myriad of social limitations: no going out with groups after class, no evenings at the piano bar, no post-study-group rewards-...and that was  _during_  the week. Maybe Peter had been even more right than Blaine had realized, he thought wryly to himself. A couple times he tried to suggest they go hang out somewhere else - not a library or anything, just a restaurant or coffeehouse, somewhere he might feel neither conspicuous for not drinking nor tempted to revert back to old and destructive habits - but had been met with a resounding blow-off as the group of students trotted eagerly toward one of his old hang-outs and he trudged back to his apartment. And if he couldn't spend his time even trying to find a nice girl to date...  
  
Peter may not have said that directly in as many words- well, not that any of his advice had really been in so many words, Blaine corrected himself; the edict to stop drinking had been cryptically disguised as a promise of a better life without any mention of alcohol whatsoever. He hadn't said there couldn't be any more women, but the combination of the haughty voice mocking his failed attempts at finding the right girl, and the look on Evelyn's face as she stormed out of the parking lot, made it awfully hard to think about approaching a girl to ask for a date.  
  
He should just give it up, he had concluded sadly on- Tuesday? He thought Tuesday, anyway, the evenings had kind of blurred together into a dark (but very clean) room with a stack of arrangements and lonely-sounding records playing. Love wasn't the beautiful thing he kept wanting it to be anyway. Movies and poets and singers were wrong; it wasn't lovely. It destroyed everything it touched, no matter how hard he tried to stop the devastation, and it always ended with people getting hurt.   
  
The arrangement that had followed the resigned decision had been defiant, but ultimately fruitless. He had spent the rest of the week trying to talk himself into believing it but hadn't had any luck so far - not while he taught it to the guys, not when he heard the sound swell around him for the first time...usually that was the time he could really feel the song the best, when he was surrounded by the music and the energy of the group, but this time it had just made him melancholy.  
  
He would have to fake it for the performance, he knew, and he could; he was an expert at pretending not to feel things that pierced him deeply. He just wasn't used to having to do so through song; usually when he performed was the only time he could be honest.  
  
But the group had liked this arrangement, had loved the way he'd sung it, and so that was what they would perform. He couldn't very well come up with a reason they  _shouldn't_  perform his brand new arrangement that they had spent all of Tuesday and Wednesday learning; they would just ask why he'd created it in the first place, if he didn't like the song, and he didn't have a response he could give them. And so, at 12:30 on Friday, he led thirteen boys across campus and into the grand center archway, striding far more confidently than he felt with his pasted-on smile and put-on charm. This time, the sea of people didn't merely part for them as it had the first performance; the crowd separated to allow the boys to pass, but folded into a group behind them, following them to see where they would perform and what they might sing. It would seem, Blaine thought to himself with a faint but nonetheless proud smile, that their reputation and cache on-campus was growing. A few weeks ago, he would have loved the idea. The group did genuinely work hard, and he was proud to lead them, but the fringe benefits of popularity held no appeal for him now. Even if singing up there could get every girl on campus to want him - not even the rest of the group, but him, just him, only him forever...what good would it do him? He couldn't have her. He couldn't make himself want her, and even if he could he wasn't going to do to her what he'd done to Evelyn.   
  
He kept hurting everyone he tried to get close to like that, so in the interest of everyone else...he just needed to stay by himself for awhile. For however long it took him to figure out how to feel things for another person without making that person miserable. So maybe forever.  
  
He hoped not, but he wasn't optimistic anymore.  
  
Luckily for Blaine, the rest of the Mendicants were invigorated by the sight of so many people - and so many girls - gathering to see them perform. Their enthusiasm was electric, and as they formed a circle to get their pitch and count off, he could feel his body starting to respond to the opportunity to sing in front of a group this big. At least this felt the same as it always did - perhaps a bit more urgent, but it  _had_  been a long and particularly awful few weeks...and he wasn't allowed any of his other vices or outlets anymore, so naturally everything was going to want to pour out through song.   
  
At least until Peter gave him some reason to hate that, too, he thought with a roll of his eyes at nowhere in particular. Knowing his luck, that was next on the boy's list of things that were harming him somehow.  
  
Maybe not, he consoled himself. Peter had stressed that the problem with the wretched father in City of Night was abandoning the things he loved. Being a music teacher wasn't the problem, it was being a music teacher when he wanted to be something more. So that meant he should be able to keep music, right?  
  
Of course, he had loved parties, too, and he saw how that ended. And he'd been completely, madly in love with Evelyn, and- well. That wasn't so much giving it up as having her no longer speaking to him. But in any event.  
  
He wouldn't give this up. No matter what book Peter threw at him next to try to get him to see that music was just covering up some hidden something that Blaine wished could have remained covered and tamped down...no matter  _what_ , he wouldn't stop this. Of all the things he needed in life, this was the one and only thing he had ever felt like he might die without.  
  
It might be all he was left with, now, but maybe... maybe music could be enough. It was better than a world of loneliness  _without_ music, that was for sure.  
  
With the best smile he could muster, Blaine blew into the pitch pipe and counted out the tempo, turning to face the growing crowd as the boys behind him started [the song](http://youtu.be/aVbLNPwi_r0). Even a few notes of listening to them sing while he remained silent felt like too many, as the frustrations of the past week seemed to bubble up inside him suddenly, as though once the river of music began to rush past he had no choice but to dive in headlong so he wouldn't be left behind.  
  
Even if he felt more like a dog straining against a leash as a squirrel ran past, needing with everything he had to go chase it and lose himself in the hunt. To just let himself  _go_ , to follow the only instincts he could still trust, and lose himself for awhile in the release of melody.  
  
 _Please lock me away  
And don't allow the day  
Here inside  
Where I hide with my loneliness  
I don't care what they say  
I won't stay in a world without love_  
  
But he had to now, didn't he? He thought to himself sadly as he sang. No matter how emphatically he sang it, there was no amount of wishing that would make love anything like the beautiful thing he saw in movies and felt in songs on the radio. Nothing would make his life into a Broadway show, where he could get the woman of his dreams if he just sang perfectly enough - if he felt everything deeply enough-  
  
He wished he could  _stop_  feeling so much. All the time. At a certain point it went from being frustrating but bearable to agonizing, especially when the thoughts that tormented him were ones he couldn't do anything about: the lonely darkness of his apartment that never seemed to get brighter no matter how many lamps he turned on; the queasiness he could never tamp down enough; the tight clench around everything inside him-- he could never tell whether it was keeping him together or crushing him, because the two prospects sounded about the same these days.  
  
Music relieved it a little - not completely, but  _enough_. Singing like this, or belting out just the right song to express how he felt in the privacy of his room... The biggest advantage of living in a building where everyone else partied and he couldn't, he was finding, was that there was no one around to complain that he was too loud as he poured his emotions out on a Friday night. The sensation was never quite enough to make him feel normal, but it took the edge off - like one beer instead of being blissfully drunk.  
  
For now, it would have to do. And maybe in time it would be everything he needed; he hoped so, anyway, since he had no idea what else he could possibly do to feel better. If he wasn't going to put any girl through dating him, and dating anyone else was completely out of the question for reasons so obvious as to not even need stated...  _something_  was going to have to fill that void, and music seemed the least destructive contender.  
  
 _Birds sing out of tune  
And rainclouds hide the moon  
I'm okay  
Here I'll stay with my loneliness  
I don't care what they say  
I won't stay in a world without love_  
  
He wanted to be defiant as he sang it, to prove he wouldn't - that he wouldn't be alone, that he wouldn't submit to the obvious solution to his problems that stared him in the face and whispered at him in the darkness. He wanted to be able to say with any degree of certainty that he would be able to love someone, that he wouldn't give up that hope as easily as he had his drinking habit, but he couldn't; he couldn't lie when he sang. From the time he could remember, it had been the one honest form of communication he had known, and he wasn't sure he could give that up even if he were willing.  
  
He was going to be stuck in a world without love for the rest of his life, he concluded glumly. Until or unless someone could come up with a way to make him able to not destroy the people he fell for, the empty apartment built for one was what he would be saddled with.  
  
Maybe not, he tried to convince himself. Maybe he could find a lovely girl after graduation - after there were places to go with a group of people that didn't involve a bar... and now that he wasn't drinking, he could help ensure he wouldn't shove a girl away the way he'd shoved Evelyn.  
  
Except those places didn't exist any more for adults than for college students taking advantage of their newfound freedoms around campus. Every work event or meeting involved a stiff drink - maybe not as much for a teacher, he hoped, though his father's business associates could certainly drink. Every dinner party required wine paired with the dinner and the appetizers and nightcaps with the boys afterward.   
  
Not that he would have to worry about being invited to those, if he couldn't bring someone to make a nice, even table. And at some point, he would have a label attached to him that would ensure he really wouldn't be invited anywhere:  
  
 _Bachelor_.  
  
There wasn't one in every circle, but every few circles had one they knew in common, and he was always regarded with a mix of disdain, pity, envy, and eye-rolling, as though every man in the room secretly wished he could do the sorts of things the bachelor might do - carousing with different women, for one - but at the same time thought of the bachelor as a sort of relic of their own by-gone youth; a boy who wouldn't grow up, an eternal Peter Pan-type who refused to accept the responsibilities of a man in the community. There were jokes about how lucky bachelors were not to be chained down to one woman, but they weren't invited to anything serious, anything important, and were generally seen as one not to be taken seriously at all - as someone who was more childlike in his mentality and couldn't be trusted with adult matters or parties.  
  
And that was if he was frequently seen in the company of different women. If he wasn't... The whispers would be bad enough to sink him just the same as an admission of his illness would. Because when considering a bachelor, there were only two options: either he wasn't married because he enjoyed women too much...or because he  _didn't_.  
  
At some point, Blaine wondered if the ostracization of being an eternal bachelor wouldn't be just as bad as admitting what was wrong with him. If people would assume anyway - what with him being unwilling to destroy women the way a bachelor seemed to need to...would hiding do him any good?  
  
That was ridiculous, he chided himself; of course nothing would be as bad as proclaiming his illness to the world. Even bachelors, as disregarded as they were in proper social circles, could at least be envied by men and pitied by women who wanted to feed them properly and be sure they were taken care of. No one envied or cooked for homosexuals.  
  
It was just as well, Blaine supposed; he didn't  _want_  to be part of that world anyway. Wasn't that what he was running from in the first place? Wasn't that why he had moved out here so eagerly? But without a wife to help pull him into the warmer family units of the middle class, without Evelyn to bring him along to her family gatherings, he wasn't sure how he would find such a place to latch onto. He couldn't very well show up and demand to be part of a stranger's family in the way that a son-in-law could, which left the stiff and detached social circles he'd been raised in; his father's associates had associates who knew people out here in California, and they would extend him invitations if he made clear he wanted them, and then... well. That would be that.  
  
At least until the bachelor comments became too much innuendo and not enough envy.  
  
 _So I wait, and in awhile  
I will see my true love smile  
She may come, I know not when  
When she does I'll know, so baby until then  
Lock me away  
And don't allow the day  
Here inside  
Where I hide with my loneliness  
I don't care what they say  
I won't stay in a world without love_  
  
Blaine scanned the crowd, hoping that maybe - just maybe - Evelyn had realized how sincere he'd been when he'd tried to come see her and sing for her the previous week. Maybe there was still a chance to make things right. Maybe, if he really tried, he might be able to earn enough of her trust back to be allowed to keep trying to fix things. It seemed unlikely, he knew, but it was better than giving up hope entirely.  
  
There were plenty of girls in the audience - all kinds, something for everyone... but nothing for him. Nothing he could have, anyway; a few of the boys in attendance might have been fodder for  _something_  if he were the type of homosexual who didn't understand just how dangerous he was, how easy it was to let the illness take over and abandon all sense of morality or decorum or propriety... A boy like Peter, who went around bragging about kissing French boys, could have plenty of young men to enjoy in the crowd, he was sure - or at least to think about, because Blaine was certain that none of them would return the feeling. But for Blaine...  
  
He had known it was possible to feel alone in a sea of people before; every party his parents had ever thrown had taught him that, for one. But somehow the chasm between him and the audience felt unbearably wider, deeper,  _more_  when it was a group he wasn't expecting to feel apart from. Put another way: of course he'd felt alone surrounded by his parents' stuffy friends and business associates, but he'd come to terms with being different from them years ago. But these were his fellow students, were the people he'd crooned to at parties for years and stood in line with for lunch and admired at undergraduate recitals... only now it felt as if they were a million miles away.  
  
None of them could understand what this song meant to him. None of them knew what lurked just beneath the surface and pasted-on grin; none of them knew what perverse sicknesses invaded his mind and made him so different from them all. And none of them would be there with him in his tiny apartment as he contemplated whether more lighting would help things feel less bleak.   
  
But there was no time to be melancholy; sixteen bars felt like a lifetime of thinking but wasn't nearly long enough to get lost in the music completely. So Blaine stood a little taller and began to sing the final verse.  
  
 _So I wait and in awhile  
I will see my true love's smile  
She may come, I know not when  
When she does I'll know, so baby until then-_  
  
Blaine caught sight of a newsboy cap in the crowd and barely managed not to groan to himself. Of course Peter would be here now. The only way it could be worse timing was if Evelyn were there and he were making a fool of himself.   
  
A part of him wanted Peter there, he had to admit. It wasn't his fault that the guy gave really good advice sometimes - sometimes the not remotely practical advice of someone who just didn't understand the real world yet, but sometimes genuinely helpful, insightful advice. How else would it ever have occurred to him that alcohol was more of a cause of his problems than a solution? And if Peter was armed with any books, they appeared to only be standard texts and perhaps a few light reading materials - such as they were for anyone with that many bookcases in that small of an apartment; few other people walked around with The History of the Peloponnesian War under their arm.   
  
Blaine tried not to let himself be distracted by Peter, but he found his eyes wandering back to the young man each time he tried to pull them away. Peter seemed to be watching him closely, a look of intense thought on his face, and Blaine wished for a moment that he weren't performing so he could ask what Peter was thinking about; it was clearly something important or new, but beyond that he couldn't discern from the expression alone.  
  
 _Lock me away  
And don't allow the day  
Here inside,   
Where I hide with my loneliness_  
  
Blaine tried to push the young man out of his mind and perform as hard as he could. He needed more release this week than most, more music, and he didn't have much time left. He needed to use every moment he could to try to exorcise everything that had been troubling him the best he could. Even as he danced across the makeshift performance area, he could feel Peter's gaze on him, and when he looked over quickly their eyes locked.  
  
Blaine swallowed hard, glad he was between words; this felt much too intimate to be appropriate - for so many reasons, not the least of which was that they were in public and surrounded by other people. Peter seemed to be studying him, and after a moment a broad smile crossed his face. Blaine wanted to ask him why, but he couldn't; Peter's grin bloomed wider as he looked suddenly inspired, then was absorbed by the crowd as the song drew to a close.  
  
 _I don't care what they say  
I won't stay in a world without love  
I don't care what they say  
I won't stay in a world without love._  
  
The onlookers erupted into a chorus of loud cheers as soon as the song ended, and Blaine stood front and center surrounded by thirteen boys who were convinced this was the singular best experience of a person's life: to be admired by so many gorgeous young women. Blaine wished he could feel the same way; he looked for Peter's cap bobbing above the throng but saw nothing, and as the divide between the audience and the performers shrank and then disappeared altogether, he slipped unnoticed out of the crowd and back toward his empty apartment.  
  
* * * * *  
  
Blaine wasn't sure how long he had been working on schoolwork when the knock on the door diverted his concentration. It must have been several hours at least because the light coming through the east-facing windows along the left wall of his room was dim and greying. Twilight came earlier on his side of the complex, so he doubted it was late enough that he'd missed his chance to grab dinner from the deli down the street he liked - they closed at 7:30 - but he couldn't be sure how close he would cut it if he left now. He sifted through the heap of opened, half-overlapping textbooks until he unearthed his clock; half past six wasn't such an odd time for a visitor, Blaine guessed, even though it was strange for him to have visitors at all, at any time. He tried to remember the last time someone had just dropped by and came up empty. Usually the only people in his apartment - other than himself, of course - were girls he invited back after a great party, and even then he more commonly stayed at their place, and-  
  
The knock came again, five neatly-landed raps in quick succession, and Blaine stood, stretching and then straightening his cardigan as he padded over to the door. Peter stood in the hall, dressed as casually as Blaine had seen him the first night at the party: off-white henley with the sleeves pushed up around his elbows, paired with soft-looking grey wool flannel pants held up by suspenders. He wore the same slouched newsboy hat as he had at the performance, but his wingtips still reflected light, polished to a brilliant black shine. Under his arm, Peter held a thick stack of albums, though Blaine couldn't see any of the titles or artists from where he stood, and he wasn't sure what had prompted the boy's beaming grin.  
  
"Peter?"  
  
"I'm sorry, I know it was impolite of me to just show up like this," he acknowledged but still seemed ready to burst from pride. "I would have called first, but I didn't have your number."  
  
Blaine started to reply that he didn't have Peter's either, as though that were the pertinent fact and not the number of times he had shown up at the man's apartment unannounced - including twice in the same night, both well after he should have been asleep. "What's going on?" he asked. He would have asked if everything was okay, but the way Peter looked so happy answered that question for him. "Come in - I'm afraid I don't have tea, but I could make coffee..."  
  
"That's fine. Where's your turntable?" Peter was inside practically as soon as Blaine had stepped back far enough to allow him in. The enthusiasm was uncharacteristic of the young man Blaine was used to; usually, Peter seemed to have it all together while he felt like he was floundering. Now, however, he seemed ready to sprout wings and fly off from sheer happiness.   
  
"Over th-" Blaine started to point on his way to the kitchen.  
  
"Found it, thank you," Peter said before Blaine could give proper directions. He supposed it wasn't that hard to find; it was one of the few things in the apartment that were used every day, so it wasn't buried under anything even at the messiest of times. It wasn't as distinctive as Peter's gramophone, but it served him well. Blaine heard Peter set down the stack of records, then his voice drew nearer. "I figured it out."  
  
"Figured what out?" Blaine asked. He tried to match Peter's enthusiasm, but it was hard when he had literally no idea what they were even talking about.  
  
"How to help you."  
  
Blaine's eyes widened and his heart leapt - he tried to tamp it down, to remind himself that so far none of Peter's active attempts at helping him had been nearly what he needed. Well-...they were in part, but none of them had solved things and each had led him down an increasingly desolate path. No matter how well-intentioned the gentleman's plans, they couldn't fix the root cause of his agony.  
  
...Could they?  
  
The possibility alone was enough to let Blaine ask, "How's that?" If there was even a chance-  
  
Peter beamed again, looking so proud of himself that if Blaine didn't know better he'd swear the man in his apartment had just won a Nobel Prize in something. "I was going about it all wrong," he stated, and though Blaine didn't want to be rude enough to agree aloud he did have to silently acknowledge the truth of Peter's statement. He wanted to help Blaine, that much was never in doubt, but he tended to focus so much on trying to convince him that there was nothing that needed fixing that he never really got at the problem itself- "I can't believe I didn't see it until today. How dim of me. You don't see the world the same way I do, so of course the way I was trying to help wouldn't work." Peter grinned again to himself, practically laughing with delight at whatever this newfound plan was.  
  
"That's true," Blaine acknowledged gently. It had been the main problem last weekend, it had been what was wrong with the books, what was wrong with everything Peter had said after the disastrous date with Evelyn. It had been easy enough to agree not to drink - though harder to give it up in practice - but so much of Peter's worldview was built on defiance of what their fathers' generation held dear that of course he didn't understand why Blaine wasn't so easily swayed-  
  
"Books are  _my_  window to the world," Peter stated, meeting Blaine's eyes, still so excited he seemed almost to vibrate with it as he shifted from one foot to the other. "That's not how things are for you. You need music."  
  
The statement meant more to Blaine than he could ever have explained to Peter, but he tried anyway. "More than anything," he replied with as much sincerity as he could let out, silently pleading that that wouldn't be the next thing to go.  
  
"No, silly," Peter laughed, reaching out to grasp Blaine's shoulders to force him to look directly. "You need music to understand the world. It's how you relate to everything. It's not just about wooing women when you've had a few drinks, and it's not just about being the center of attention for you. Is it?" he asked with a gentle smile.  
  
"No," he replied, his voice quiet but certain.  
  
"I didn't see it until I watched you perform this afternoon - God only knows why, it was so obvious," Peter chuckled at his own expense. "Giving you books, giving you essays and studies and narratives that forced you to read things right there in black and white... you couldn't detach yourself, but you couldn't relate to it either. It just ended up scaring you. But music... That you'll be able to understand."  
  
There were too many half-formed thoughts in Peter's statement, and while from what Blaine could follow it  _sounded_  right, he still wasn't sure where this was going or what any of it meant for him. "Understand what?" he asked slowly, eyebrows lowered in skepticism, and Peter's hand slid down onto his bicep.   
  
"Do you trust me?" The hand on his arm gave a gentle squeeze that left Blaine feeling like all the blood had been drained from his body. Peter's palm was broad, strong, reassuring in all the ways that were not reassuring at all. His eyes were too bright in this light and from this angle, his smile too warm and genuine, and Blaine wanted more than anything for something bad to happen right now. Then maybe-  
  
He wasn't talking about being stabbed in the chest by a pin, he wasn't a child anymore - wasn't that desperate high schooler anymore in the middle of an ancient Warbler ritual. No one was in their underwear, thank God, and this was his apartment. He could tell the man to leave, and he had no doubt that Peter would. But if something could happen right now that would help him  _want_  Peter to leave, so he could remember that instead of how eager and kind the man looked... Maybe that would help enough.  
  
Still, he had to answer the question, and he couldn't lie. "Yes," he replied quietly. It was himself he didn't trust. While Peter's illness made everything around him more dangerous because of the possibility of reciprocation, if he weren't sick himself then there wouldn't be any danger of temptation. And while many homosexuals were violent, out of their minds with frenzied lust, Peter seemed more sedate and respectful, as though he had a greater hold on his instincts even if he chose not to rid himself of them completely.  
  
"Then let me play some things for you," Peter urged. His smile grew broader as he added, "Worst case scenario, you spend an evening listening to music you may like."  
  
Only that wasn't the worst case scenario, Blaine knew. There were far worse things that could come of it than that. That was how it had started with Kurt - the two of them and some Judy Garland albums in his dorm room - and look how that had turned out. Music was too powerful a thing to bond over. Although...  
  
Maybe he would be safe. Peter wasn't as drawn to music as he was, so it wouldn't be like with Kurt. Part of the problem had been Kurt's enthusiasm for the songs, the way he sang along to them, but Peter wouldn't. So maybe he would be fine.  
  
"Okay," he allowed, and Peter smiled broadly as he led Blaine over toward the table that held his record player.   
  
"My collection's not nearly as extensive as yours, I'm sure, but I did what I could."  
  
"What do you mean?" Blaine asked as he sat on the edge of the bed, because Peter still wasn't making any sense.  
  
"I should back up," Peter acknowledged, and Blaine did his best not to make his nod appear as though he agreed too heartily. "When we spoke last, you were trying to explain to me that the way you knew it was wrong was because your father treated hopeless cases all the time, and because you saw how society feels about men like us firsthand for too much of your life."  
  
It was what they had talked about, and yet it wasn't; Peter's summary made it sound as though Blaine had no stake in it whatsoever, and that wasn't true. He wasn't merely parroting back something he'd been told - he  _agreed_  that he shouldn't- But there was nothing in the statement he could inherently disagree with, so Blaine replied, "Mostly," and left it at that.  
  
Peter smiled and nodded again, standing at the foot of Blaine's bed. "And we came to the conclusion that you don't hold  _all_  the same opinions as our father's generation, correct?"  
  
"Well I don't-"  
  
"I'm assuming, from the makeup of the Mendicants, that you're not in favour of segregation?" Peter supposed, and at that Blaine had to concede the point. He looked down, smiling faintly in acknowledgement of the truth of Peter's statement, and nodded. "And from the way you praised that girl's wit, I'm guessing you don't want a bored housewife with an M.R.S. degree."  
  
On that, Blaine was slightly more torn. He wanted his children to one day have all the warmth he'd lacked growing up, which he did associate with the presence of a mother to dote on them, but at the same time... He'd seen girls around whose only interest in college - and in life - was finding a husband, and they had never held his interest. He needed someone who could challenge him at least a little, and that... that  _did_  sound like what Peter was describing. "Ideally," he replied.  
  
"So you're already leaps and bounds ahead of our parents," Peter stated.  
  
Blaine gave a short nod and a bit of a shrug, because on those two issues Peter might be right, but- "Does that really have anything to do with-" before he had to struggle to get the word 'us' past his lips, Peter jumped back in with his most professorial voice.  
  
"I'm glad you asked," he stated, smiling broadly. "That brings us perfectly to what I wanted to show you." He stepped to his left over to the turntable and sifted through his stack until he found the album he wanted. Blaine tried to peer over to see what Peter had brought, to get any idea of what was going on, but Peter kept the record and its sleeve in a position where Blaine couldn't see anything but its shape. "Not so very long ago," Peter began his lecture as he pulled the album from its sleeve and placed it carefully with a precise hand on the record player, "everyone younger than we are now was obsessed with a particularly handsome young man with tall hair and very flexible hips." It only took Blaine a moment to guess who Peter was talking about, and he snickered at the description - it sounded at once silly and lurid. "And everyone older than we are now thought he was destroying the country. Teenagers would run wild, they claimed, and give in to sexual urges at the very sight of a man's gyrations on television. So tell me, Blaine-" Peter lowered the needle to the record, and a familiar [song](http://youtu.be/SKtzJb6guoo) filled the room. "Did this ruin the world?" he asked over the rock and roll song with a patronizing grin.  
  
Blaine rolled his eyes but smiled and shook his head. "Of course not," he replied, because it was true; no matter how many people had sworn up and down that Elvis would cause an explosion in inappropriate teenage behaviour, upheaval like that hadn't come to pass. He had revolutionized music, and his influence was stamped all over popular culture, but the United States hadn't come toppling down as a result of a man's hips on the Ed Sullivan Show.   
  
"Really? Because our parents were so sure," Peter replied dryly, and Blaine shook his head because he got Peter's point - but it was more complicated than that. "Well, if he didn't destroy the country's sense of morality, what about these guys?" He lifted the needle and removed the Elvis record, replacing it quickly with [another](http://youtu.be/T0YifXhm-Zc), and in a few moments the strains of "She Loves You" filled the room. "You like them, right?"  
  
"Yes," Blaine replied, but he was growing frustrated. "Look, Peter, I understand and appreciate what you're trying to do, and I'm grateful that you care enough to try, but this isn't going to change my mind."  
  
"Change your mind about what?"  
  
"About what we are," Blaine stated, aggravated that Peter would play dumb like that. "About what's wrong with us. Just because my father treats men like us and also happens to dislike Elvis-"  
  
"Okay." Peter held up his hands in surrender. "Will you let me play one more thing?"  
  
"What?" Blaine asked, not sure where this was going.  
  
"Ah ah ah, no questions. One more record, yes or no?" Blaine wasn't sure it would do any good - in fact, he was growing certain it wouldn't - but he supposed he didn't have anything left to lose, so maybe- "To sweeten the pot, I can tell you it's almost certainly something you've never heard before."   
  
That piqued his curiosity. There wasn't much music he hadn't listened to - at least, not that he knew of. He had grown up with classical played quietly at his parents' soirees, and he had been taken to the opera enough times as a child to be familiar with most of them, and he listened to rock and Broadway and plenty of the music he was about five years too young for- "Really?"   
  
Peter grinned. "Is that a yes?"  
  
"Yes," Blaine allowed, and Peter beamed again in victory as he pulled the Beatles off the turntable and replaced it with a new [record](http://youtu.be/OMmeNsmQaFw). He lowered the needle and turned to watch Blaine listen.  
  
Peter had been right - it was something he definitely hadn't heard before, and with good reason. The piano on the record was playing nothing but- but  _noise_ , but whatever keys he happened to hit, like a small child with hands that were too tiny to play the correct chords who had no sense of his own limitations. There was no melody, no harmony that made any sense, no chord progression - no  _chords_ , just random sounds thrown together in a jumbled mess. Peter barely managed to contain laughter at Blaine's expression. "I take it you're not used to jazz," he supposed.  
  
"It's not that," Blaine tried, because politeness kept him from saying how awful he thought it was.  
  
"Sure it is," Peter replied. He held up the album sleeve, then handed it to Blaine so he could see it. "Thelonious Monk. When I first heard of him, I misheard the person giving his name and thought it was a political statement about the Catholic Church." Blaine smiled faintly at the joke, and Peter continued. "Just keep listening. Give it a try. I know it's not like the music you're used to." His voice was gentle, understanding, but urging nonetheless, and Blaine couldn't bring himself to say no. It was just a song, after all, it wasn't anything harmful no matter how much his ears were protesting.   
  
It wasn't even that the individual notes themselves were awful, and the more he listened the more obvious it was that the piano player had far more finesse than an unruly child. It was just too much for his brain to sort out, too many things to listen to all at once, and none of it seemed to fit together. The notes and rhythm, such as they were,  _felt_  upbeat but the rest of the chords didn't sound it. Every time he started to catch wind of a melody, it changed, like the entire piece of music were written on an Etch-a-Sketch and, instead of just turning a page every so often, the person sitting beside the pianist fellow shook up the score and started over again.  
  
But still, there was something-... Something about it, something that left Blaine searching in the music instead of tuning it out, something that made him want to- if he could just listen harder, listen awhile longer, he could find whatever it was Peter liked about this, he felt certain. If he tried-  
  
He rolled his eyes, frustrated; music wasn't supposed to be work. It wasn't supposed to require a translation and make him this desperate to try harder. He had enough things in his life that he had to work at, and music was meant to be the means by which he freed himself from all of that. Yet when the song came to an end, and Peter lifted the arm and asked whether they should listen again, Blaine replied unhesitatingly, "Yes."  
  
He was close to finding the beauty in the song, he was sure of it. It constantly felt just out of reach, just beyond his ears, but maybe one more time-  
  
"I know you hear noise," Peter stated as he began the song again, and Blaine wasn't sure where to focus: on the words, or on the chords he couldn't quite understand. "Most people do. But I hear something beautiful, complex, fragile... I hear something amazing, even if other people don't understand it. I  _feel_  something with jazz-... it's like looking at a handsome young man. Just because other people don't feel the same thing I do when they look at him, just because they don't see the same things I do... it doesn't mean it's not there, Blaine. It doesn't mean there's anything wrong with the way I hear, or feel, or see. It just means that my world is in jazz, and theirs is the Beatles."  
  
And suddenly, there it was.  
  
Blaine wished he knew what 'it' was, what about that explanation had made things seem simpler, but he didn't. And it wasn't perfect, it didn't answer everything- far from it. But something about whatever it was made him at-ease enough to change his tone, pointing out in a more questioning than defensive voice, "Isn't there a difference between liking a type of music and being severely mentally ill?"  
  
"I thought we were past that," Peter sighed softly, shaking his head. "Your father-"  
  
"He's very well-respected, he isn't a quack selling potions. He tries to help people who have nowhere else to turn." He wasn't sure why he felt compelled to defend the man he tried to avoid spending five minutes alone in a room with, but something about the way Peter kept trying to dismiss the whole field and all its beliefs set him on edge every time.  
  
"These men he helps... do they come to him voluntarily?"  
  
"Most do, as far as I know. Sometimes their families bring them because they're a threat to themselves."  
  
Peter winced, sitting on the edge of the bed but giving Blaine some space. "They-" He sighed and shook his head. "Suffice it to say that who you have seen is not a representative sample. They believe they're sick, so they want to be cured. They aren't everyone, Blaine. They want help not feeling the way they do, so of course they're miserable. That's why you're so miserable." When Blaine tried to protest feebly, Peter cut him off. "It is. My dear boy- if you could only see- that's the root of everything wrong in your life. That's why you drank so heavily, that's why you chase all those women and need to prove you can have them, that's why you keep everyone at a distance - everything is held so tightly inside you. You're like an overstuffed suitcase about to pop open. Which means you have a choice. You can keep feeling the way that you do...or you can find the beauty in who we are and embrace it."   
  
Blaine wanted to protest, but everything he was saying was  _right_. Everything he'd worked to surround himself, all the ways he'd tried to cope since moving to California, laid out in front of him by a gentleman with expressive eyes and a pitying look on his face. Still, the choice wasn't nearly as simple as Peter made it out to be. He didn't know how much longer he could bear feeling the way he did - the way he had felt for as long as he could remember... or for whatever portions of his life he  _could_  remember. He certainly didn't want to continue the way he had; particularly without alcohol to help ease everything, to help smooth his insides over, he felt like he could snap at any point, and then-...   
  
He wondered what it was that had set his mother off, what had made her snap way back when. He wondered if she'd felt like this, back when she could feel anything at all, before the cocktails and medications hollowed her into a smiling, presentable shell. Did she have enough idea of what was going on to have regrets about it? Would she do the same thing again? Or would she embrace whatever- whatever darkness it had been that had caused her to explode in such an unacceptable way for a society woman?  
  
But then there was the question of the other supposed option. No good came of embracing being sick. At least if he could find a girl he liked, he could have the things he craved so badly - warmth, family, a home...where would any of that be if he just let himself be the way he felt?  
  
Of course, he reminded himself, where was any of that now? Where was any of that for his parents, for their friends, for anyone he had grown up knowing? The only person he knew with a family like that was Kurt anyway, with the dad who worked on cars with him and the stepmom who didn't know how to cook but really tried anyway. And Kurt had sworn up and down that there could be homosexuals in- in  _relationships_ , so maybe-  
  
"Do you think a person could be happy?" Blaine asked quietly. "Being a... fan of jazz. Or is it a lonely life?"  
  
Peter's face twisted into something like agony, and he reached out to cup Blaine's face; the sudden warmth left him breathless as Peter replied, "Happy. I promise. You just have to find someone else who feels the way you do. Things may not be perfect - they're never perfect - but I have been so happy in my life... and I have no doubt you can find that. None at all."  
  
Blaine nodded mutely. It sounded so nice, so- so  _possible_ , the way Peter made it seem like just another style of music instead of what he'd grown up seeing it as, and... of all the words he could use to describe the eccentric gentleman, he didn't know that 'lonely' would spring to mind quickly at all. He was so outgoing, often in the company of female friends, invited to parties for a department that wasn't even his own... And he'd had boyfriends, hadn't he said? The one who kissed well but didn't last long, and the- the French guy. Peter had certainly sounded happy talking about them... not the way he felt when he thought about Kurt, so angry and hurt and full of regret...   
  
"You and my- former boyfriend-" he struggled to get the word out. Even saying the word 'boyfriend' aloud felt terrifying, but how else could he describe Kurt? "-would have gotten along well," Blaine managed finally, staring at the edge of the desk intently. Kurt would have loved this conversation, would have spent the entire time standing there with his arms neatly folded and shooting him a look that said "See? I've only been telling you this for half a decade now, Blaine." Of course, if he'd believed it then he wouldn't have needed this conversation now, but that wasn't the point.  
  
That caught Peter's attention, and he leaned closer, smiling gently. "You think so?" he prompted, and Blaine knew he needed to talk about Kurt eventually but it just seemed so difficult to sort out. His relationship had been more complicated than the chords plinking out on the record.  
  
Instead he simply nodded and replied, "Yes. You had a similar...optimism." He'd called it something else at the time, but now... If he was going to try this, he needed to really try this. "He tried for months to convince me, but in the end I... couldn't. I just couldn't."  
  
Peter nodded slowly, then patted his shoulder fondly, with such tenderness that Blaine could sense it without looking up. "You weren't ready," he offered gently.   
  
"What if I could have had the things he talked about, but I can't find them with anyone else?" he asked, the words startling him even as they came out of his mouth. He didn't talk about this - he'd never- for obvious reasons, and then the bigger reasons on top of that, and now he just said things-  
  
"You will," Peter assured him. "You're too kind a soul to be alone forever. And with that voice? Boys should watch out, you'll steal their hearts in a second."  
  
Blaine rolled his eyes at the ridiculous attempt at a consoling talk and replied, "That's not been my experience. Boys aren't like that."  
  
"Not that you know, that's all," Peter replied. "They hide as well as you did. But believe me, you have all the right things to find someone now that you're not afraid of yourself. I have a sense about these things. You may not see the beauty, but I do."  
  
Blaine didn't know that he believed any of it. He knew he was talented, and he had certainly used his talent to his advantage to try to get girls to pay attention to him over other boys, but he wasn't sure he was half as great as Peter was making him out to be... and even if he were, he wasn't sure how that would translate into finding the things he wanted so badly. But at the same time... it wasn't as though he'd found them with a girl, had he? He wasn't sure if that meant he wasn't good at finding the qualities he needed, or if he'd just spent so much time floundering because he didn't know how to like the right girls? "So I'm like a piece of jazz?" Blaine concluded, trying to joke but sounding too nervous to really convey amusement. "Only you can feel the beauty?"  
  
Peter chuckled at his comment anyway, which did make him feel a little better - not much, not enough, but a little. He hesitated, then leaned over to the stack of records he'd brought. "No - I'm jazz, you're much more... Oh, where did she go?" At the use of 'she', Blaine found himself desperately hoping it wasn't Judy Garland. He wasn't sure why Peter would have one of her albums, but then, he couldn't imagine that guy owning "Hound Dog," either, so really he had no choice but to fear-  
  
"Ah, here we go," Peter smiled as he plucked up the record he was looking for. He put it on the turntable, then studied the back of the cardboard sleeve for a few moments before selecting the song and lowering the [needle](http://youtu.be/AuPOwe-2EYA) with a precise hand. Blaine had never been so grateful to hear a song he didn't recognize in his life. "Do you know this one?"  
  
"No," he replied, almost breathing a sigh of relief.  
  
"Dusty Springfield. She's wildly popular in England right now, but her songs have a theatricality to them... a way they swell as she pours emotion into them, but always with control. And a lot of her songs are about being utterly lonely, but they're romantic at the same time. I think she wants to believe in all those childhood dreams but she never manages to get there. And it all exudes trying so hard - at what she's singing about, not at the songs themselves. The songs themselves sound effortless." This music was much more Blaine's style than the jazz, with catchy melodies and a full, almost Phil Spector-ish quality, but Peter was right - it sounded like wanting and trying but pasting on a smile and trying to be upbeat... only succeeding a lot more than Judy ever did. The loneliness was clear, but so was the spirit...  
  
And perhaps more importantly, she could be his. Judy Garland, in his mind, belonged forever to Kurt... to the way he cried beautifully as he sang, and the way he poured every ounce of sadness into songs, and the way he refused to be defeated...   
  
 _I just don't know what to do with my time  
I'm so lonesome for you it's a crime  
Going to a movie only makes me sad  
Parties make me feel as bad  
When I'm not with you  
I just don't know what to do..._  
  
There were reasons he hadn't been able to listen to those albums since leaving Ohio, and every reason had to do with the boy he'd left behind. And he missed them both.


	9. Chapter 9

  
The airline ticket arrived on October 18.   
  
The crisp white envelope itself had been enough to send Blaine into a momentary panic, gut clenching as he saw his father's familiar jagged print - easier to read when written quickly than proper script, which was of the essence when his job involved taking plenty of notes over the course of each session. He swallowed hard as he moved from the mailbox into his apartment, setting his bag on the floor beside his desk chair as he tugged his finger roughly across the top of the envelope, not sure he could trust his hands to hold a letter opener without piercing his own thumb, as nervous as he was. He reached inside and his fingers closed around a single piece of heavy paper.   
  
  
He wasn't sure why he had expected a note of some kind, he realized as he withdrew the ticket. What would his father possibly think he needed to communicate to his son beyond what was right there in black and white beneath a PanAm logo: the date and time of his anticipated return to Ohio, and the unspoken consequences of his failure to do so. Unlike his mother, who would have enclosed a short missive full of effusive politeness saying how they couldn't wait to see him for Christmas, his father was never one for feigned sentimentality. And if, as Blaine was already worried it might be, this year was about checking up on him and helping him find a wife because he was already past-due for the kind of serious relationship that could lead to becoming a proper family man, a man as psychologically savvy as his father wouldn't risk ruining the element of surprise by alerting his son to that fact. As though he couldn't figure it out on his own, he thought bitterly. He had only been an Anderson for 23 years now, and keeping his guard up had been the first lesson of family dinners.   
  
That there was no return ticket made him freeze, momentarily terrified that he would be dragged back to Ohio under the guise of being gone for too many holidays only to not be allowed to leave. That was ridiculous, he told himself firmly as he tried to shake the rising panic. For one thing, school had already been paid for through the end of the year, and he seriously doubted that his parents would keep him from completing it, especially when plenty of guys his age were having to contend with the draft once they were no longer enrolled. For another, he liked to think that sort of hostage-taking would at least include a note - something telling him to bring all his things back with him, at the very least. Although, with his father's professional appreciation for the element of surprise (even as much as he detested it in his personal dealings), maybe they wouldn't tell him- What reason could they possibly have? He tried to point out to himself.   
  
Unless of course they knew about- He swallowed hard, feeling an icy chill in his stomach at the thought.   
  
What if they had finally grown suspicious about his reasons for not having a serious girl to go with yet? What if they had either stumbled on the truth somehow or taken a guess that turned out to be right, and when he went back home he would be whisked off to one of his father's favourite and most reputable facilities, where-   
  
No, he told himself sternly. That wasn't why. There was no way, absolutely none, that his parents knew. He hadn't done anything to make them suspect- they didn't even know about his newfound shut-in status,which might give a person pause, and they certainly didn't have any knowledge of Peter or his giant collection of books, or-...or jazz music. They couldn't possibly know the reason-   
  
Besides. Even if they did suspect, his father had far too much wrapped up in his own pride to ever acknowledge the truth about his son. After decades blaming homosexuals' families for their condition, for perpetuating the illness if not causing it in the first place, Blaine knew his father would have to accept far too much responsibility and fault in order to admit that his son was like that. He would have to acknowledge being a cold and absent father - though Blaine wasn't sure how his mother could ever be called overbearing - or that he had made his son sick by exposing him to so many ill men when he was young, or...or any number of things that he knew his father would never admit to.   
  
Not that Blaine blamed him for his condition. He didn't blame anyone except maybe himself. He knew Peter would try to convince him that even the 'maybe' was unacceptable, but Blaine saw it as an enormous step. A few weeks ago, it had been 'certainly,' with no potential or ambiguity about it. However small, it felt like progress to him.   
  
None of that made him any less miserable, as he stared at an airline ticket and worried his parents might know his secret. Of course, if his parents had managed to go so long without knowing - when his father had pegged Kurt's illness from one dinner - Blaine seriously doubted that they knew now. And besides, if they really knew, why wait? Why not have a ticket sent for an immediate trip, or send a colleague out to knock on his door and catch him off-guard, or-...or  _something_. Instead, all the envelope contained was a ticket for one Christmas obligation by a son to his parents. Nothing more.   
  
A tiny part of him wondered what he would have to do for them to have any idea. He swallowed hard at his mind's own betrayal - was he crazy? That was the last thing he wanted. He knew exactly what would happen to him then. But at the same time...if his father was so used to homosexuals that he could diagnose and treat one practically on-sight, what was so wrong that he couldn't see his own son's misery? How many years had he spent feeling miserable under his parents' roof and wanting desperately to be able to say anything about his condition- how on earth could his father not  _know_? Especially considering Peter had known almost instantly. Was the young man just magical in addition to eccentric? He doubted it, but all things considered-   
  
With a frustrated sigh, he stuffed the ticket back into its envelope and tossed the packet onto the top of his dresser; it skidded past two bowties and came to rest against the brim of a hat he hadn't worn in years. He would deal with that later- as late as possible, and only if he couldn't manage to avoid the trip entirely.   
  
A knock at the door pulled his attention from the envelope taunting him over on the dresser, and he swung his legs over the side of the bed. They felt heavy suddenly, as though things were quite literally weighing him down, but the knock came again. He pushed himself up and padded to the door, opening it partway to peer out for the source of the sound.   
  
Peter stood on the other side wearing an easy smile and a bowtie Blaine immediately wished he owned: forest green with a small design in cranberry and beige, narrow and old-fashioned, just right to go with one of his favourite sweaters... "I'm not bothering you, am I?" Peter asked as he held up a notebook. "A classmate of mine just sent me these incredible articles about the impact of the election over there, and I thought you might appreciate seeing how things are playing out." Blaine didn't entirely understand what Peter meant - over where, for one,and why he might appreciate it in particular, but he smiled and stepped back to open the door and allow him in. He didn't especially care why Peter was there, if he was being honest with himself. He was glad to see the boy regardless. Any distraction from the looming trip was a welcome one, and there was something about talking to Peter that always left him-   
  
He wasn't sure how to describe it. He almost never felt  _better_  after, so he couldn't really say that, but something about the conversations, no matter how full of things he disagreed with they might be, felt...amazing. Blaine tried to remember if he felt the same thing with other guys, if it was something new, but he realized he wasn't sure the last time he'd talked to anyone -  _really_  talked to them, about something more than what song might help win girls or when homework was due. Anyone except Peter, anyway. He'd had no idea he'd missed it that much.   
  
He moved over to the tiny kitchen counter and began to heat water. The tea had been an impulse purchase his last time out at the store - after all, if Peter greeted him with warm beverages every time he showed up at a moment's notice, it was only polite to return the favour. "So what are these articles from?" he asked, glancing over his shoulder as Peter sat on the edge of his bed.   
  
"The election," Peter replied, as though it should be obvious. When Blaine blinked at him, not understanding, Peter smiled faintly and shook his head with a warm chuckle, then began again. "They've just elected a new government in the UK," he stated. "The Conservatives prolonged calling it as long as they could, but with the Profumo scandal-"   
  
"Was that the secretary who was involved with the prostitute?" he asked. The name sounded familiar, he was sure from one of the previous times Peter had tried to explain all this to him, but he wasn't sure. There were plenty of scandals to go around over there, it seemed.   
  
"The Secretary of State for War, yes," Peter confirmed. "Labour won - the first time since 1951 they've held power- cheers," he smiled as Blaine walked over and handed him the steaming mug. "A former flatmate of mine sent these articles to me about what it would mean if Labour formed a government - obviously, these were written and sent before the win, since there's no way they would have gotten here from overseas in the three days since the election. Ours are far from the only issues they'll be addressing, of course, and there's more than enough political upheaval right now that I'm sure we won't be the first thing they address, but I've no doubt they'll repeal the laws now." He beamed over his mug as he took a sip, green eyes lit up in a way that made Peter actually appear his age instead of his usual, much older demeanor. "Just imagine: the police won't be able to arrest men just for private homosexual conduct. They can't barge into bedrooms anymore or prosecute based on love letters..."   
  
Blaine knew Peter was intending to sell this as progress, to remind him that the world was changing, but all Blaine heard were the ways that people like them could be penalized for acting on their impulses, even in private. Could the police really- he knew they could arrest men for what they did in public and raid bars...and drive-ins, he thought glumly to himself...but could they really burst into a person's home like that? To use love letters as evidence not only of an illness as his father would have done, but of a crime- If he'd known any of that, he would have never let Kurt into his dorm, he thought with a choke of a mirthless laugh. He barely let Kurt near him as it was, and certainly not in a place where others could see, but the dorm had felt safe because it was  _his_  - it was private. Sure, technically as it was school grounds, any staff member at Dalton could have come in had they suspected anything dangerous or improper was going on, but Blaine couldn't remember a single instance where anyone had done so - the students took the Honour Code too seriously, and the teachers and administrators knew that. Could they have really been in as much danger there as they were in anywhere else? Could police barge into a home here, too, into a dorm or- or  _apartment_...and prosecute based on what they found there? He'd never heard of such a thing, but he knew if someone were to knock on the door right now and find Peter - an unapologetic, unconcealed eccentric - on his bed, they could easily get the wrong idea.   
  
No, he assured himself, swallowing hard to tamp down the rising panic. That sort of thing couldn't happen in the United States. Even criminals had rights here, and while he was certainly no expert on the British government, he did know from basic civics lessons that they didn't have a Bill of Rights over there. The Magna Carta granted some rights, but not in the same way. Surely they had to be at least somewhat more protected here - at least in private places, even if contrary to Kurt's assertions they weren't safe at a drive-in theater in the middle of a field in Ohio.   
  
Slightly more at-ease, he ventured, "Do you really think they're going to do it? Hasn't it been awhile since that report was issued?"   
  
"The Conservatives were hell-bent on pushing it aside and never doing anything about the recommendations in Wolfenden," Peter replied with a dismissive wave of his hand. "Labour isn't like that. And look at this." He set the mug of tea aside and opened his notebook, flicking past a couple sheets of newsprint before he found what he was looking for. With a broad smile, he handed it to Blaine. "Look at what Lord Arran says there. About how he intends to ensure that homosexual men are treated humanely under the law."   
  
Blaine wasn't quite sure what to say to that. Peter was so excited by it, and mostly he just found it...unfathomable. Or perhaps more aptly, unlikely to change much. There were lawmakers in the United States who advocated for the humane treatment of criminals, who advocated compassion for the mentally ill, and even if Peter was right that they weren't the latter and shouldn't be the former - a position Blaine had been slowly coming to terms with for much of the previous two weeks - that was still what they were. At least as far as the law and the medical profession were concerned...and no amount of philosophizing or playing jazz music could change either of those definitions. Lord Arran could be on his way to it, or he could be simply speaking with the same polite pity that plenty of people had for people like himself and Peter.   
  
"Does he really believe that?" Blaine asked, glancing up at Peter. The boy's eyebrows raised as he took a sip of tea, questioning, and Blaine continued. "I mean, does he actually believe there's nothing wrong with us and we're just as good as others, or is he saying it the way society people talk about compassion for people of all races? They don't actually do anything about it."   
  
Peter thought a moment before responding. "I suppose it doesn't matter whether he believes it or not, so long as he acts upon it," he offered, eyebrows knitted together in thought. "Of course he could be trying to score points on the backs of people who don't have enough power to combat it...I hate when politicians do it, but I suppose any MP could be susceptible to that kind of logic. That said, I think we remain a difficult enough issue that I find it unlikely he would go out on a limb to change the law if he didn't genuinely understand that we're just as worthy of respect and proper treatment as everyone else in the UK - or anywhere. I think he's standing up for what's right."   
  
"So you think he's admirable?" Blaine concluded, and Peter laughed.   
  
"I wouldn't go that far. I think he's doing the least he can do. The least any of us can do is stand up for what we believe in. I think recognizing our humanity is a significant step, and having the courage to be quite so public about his intentions to change the law is admirable enough. But I don't believe in lionizing a person for standing up for what's right; that's such a fundamental obligation of humanity that it doesn't warrant special appreciation and approval."   
  
"But no one does," Blaine pointed out. "At least not about people like us. ...Do they?" He had never heard of it, not the way he heard about people standing up for the rights of other powerless groups who were being mistreated - the Freedom Riders and everything... Which meant that either no one believed that treating homosexuals with respect and kindness - even compassion - was right, or those who did weren't doing anything about it. Blaine wasn't sure which option seemed to ring the most true, nor which was less depressing to consider.   
  
Peter shook his head slightly. "A few, but rarely. Not nearly as many as should. But we can't control any of that," he added when he saw Blaine's pained expression. "We can encourage it, but really it's up to each person to take a stand for what they believe in - to protest against and violate unjust laws, to fight for lawmakers to change things, to force communities to adopt and enforce the laws that the government finally enacts after too many decades to address- Did you know that some schools refused to integrate even five years after  _Brown_  was decided?"   
  
Blaine swallowed hard, remembering one such town - its backwards students that made Mercedes and Kurt leave dinner angrily, the court case that had forced them to finally obey federal law... The entirely separate school he would have had to go to, with its own glee club.... He remembered how absolutely thrilled Kurt had been when the decision had been rendered, how excited he was because it meant things were changing - for  _everyone_ \- and that  _song_ \- "Yes," he replied distantly.   
  
"What's wrong?" Peter asked as he took another sip. "Oh- Was your school one of them?"   
  
"No," he replied with a quick shake of his head. "My school was one of the good ones. People were people. Everyone was treated the same." It felt so hollow as he said it, but it had remained true; no one thought anything of the makeup of the Warblers. And they had stood up for right, too - they had given away their one chance at a National competition because they didn't want to go without the entire team.   
  
At least one of them had known about him and Kurt, too, and Sam's non-reaction - at least, non-reaction as relayed through Kurt, though Blaine wasn't sure how much of that had been an attempt to placate him and soothe his fear about what would happen to them - gave him pause for the first time in years. Would the Warblers have stood up for the two of them, had they known? Would their goodness and strength have extended that far? He doubted even those boys, as good as they were - and as good of  _friends_  as they had been - would have gone quite so far as to support two Warblers kissing one another. No one could be  _that_  tolerant. And moreover, he was fairly certain they would have been kicked out of school once anyone in the administration had known. Between the illness that would have made them both mentally and psychologically unfit for school, the fact that either he or Kurt could have been sneaking into boys' rooms and doing vile things- attacking them, like some homosexuals his father treated had done...   
  
No, he concluded. It was good that no one had known. Too much hell would have rained down on them both had anyone found out. Sam had owed them both too much to betray them, but no one else owed them anything. Standing up for what was right would have required any of them to believe that his conduct was anything less than sick, and he couldn't have asked his friends to do that. He wasn't sure he could ask friends to do that  _now_ , and at least here he didn't have to worry about them treating him differently once they knew where his father came from.   
  
Not that he was about to go shouting that from the rooftops, either.   
  
He sighed softly and took a long sip of his own tea, and when Peter spoke, it was in an exceedingly gentle tone. "Blaine. Do you have many people around?" Blaine blinked, trying to assess the question. "What do you mean?" he asked, eyebrows lowering. "To talk to. People you can lean on. People who know what you go through."   
  
The only other person he'd told, he had also destroyed - but he wasn't about to say that. What would the point be? "There's you," he offered. "That's more than there's been in a long time. Who else would I need?" He cringed at the way it sounded as it came out, but Peter lit up for a moment, his broad smile warm in the late afternoon light. "Besides, telling anyone would just destroy everything. Why would I do that?"   
  
Peter regarded him slowly, eyes peering at him intently in a way that made Blaine feel even more uncomfortable than the awkward silence that fell. "I know the pressures you're under," he stated, his voice gentle but firm. "The need for respectability, to be a proper member of society - let alone the need to carry on the family name and lineage. I understand why it wouldn't be easy to tell your family-"   
  
Blaine almost choked at the suggestion. Never in a million years would that be who he would even contemplate telling. If he were given the choice between telling the two people who had created him, or introducing himself as "I'm Blaine Anderson, sufferer of psychosexual deviation" to every person he met for the rest of his life, he would have to think seriously about it before answering, and he was pretty sure the latter would win out. Telling his father would mean being whisked immediately to the nearest asylum - or being berrated into hours of hypnotic psychotherapy, or being carted off to whomever his father's favourite colleague was this month- It would mean the end of everything.   
  
As many years as he had spent wanting nothing more than to be cured, to be rid of his affliction, never once had he admitted his feelings to his father. He had to believe it was because he knew the consequences would be so agonizing that they could never be outweighed by the devastation of being - and feeling - as wrong as he had for most of his life. That had to be why he'd never managed to be cured.   
  
Telling his mother would be no better, he knew; she and his father didn't speak much, certainly nothing deeper than the social niceties that were required of a husband and wife, but they were still his parents and if she believed he was in danger he was certain she would tell his father. Besides, keeping secrets required a much more intense engagement with life than she was capable of.   
  
"I have no intention of telling them," he stated unequivocally, and Peter looked surprised - though Blaine wasn't sure whether it was because of the sentiment or the vehemence.   
  
"Of all people." Peter hesitated before he ventured, "Are they cruel?"   
  
They weren't; it would have been easier to feel disconnected from them if they had been. But explaining why his family was more complicated on the issue of his homosexuality than the average cold society family would have required so much more than he could give.   
  
"No," he replied shortly. "But they're not going to find out, and I really don't want to talk about that possibility anymore."   
  
Peter held his hands up in surrender, then stood and took his teacup over to the kitchen. He turned on the tap and gave the mug a cursory swish of water before setting it in the sink. "So what would being open destroy?" he asked again over his shoulder. "If not your family."   
  
It wasn't being open that was the problem - telling people wasn't what he had meant would destroy everything, though he guessed he hadn't made that clear. It wasn't just talking about it that would ruin his life, though he was sure it would, especially if what the articles said about life in the UK was true and anything like life in the US. He was sure being arrested and photographed for the world to see like those men at the drive-in had been wouldn't do him any favours for the rest of his life. But it wasn't just a matter of his secret being destructive because it was held in; it was destructive to everyone around him.   
  
But when he couldn't say that, Peter prodded further, "No one's suggesting you should use it to begin every conversation," and Blaine managed a mirthless chuckle to himself, which prompted a grin from the other man. "But you need people around you, Blaine. Obviously I'm here for you and anything you need - and I'm happy to be. I don't want you to misunderstand. But no one should be limited to just one person to lean on. You should have friends who understand you - who know what you're going through, even if it's not something they experience. You should have a support system around you instead of being so lonely... No man is an island, you know."   
  
"It's not that simple," he offered, but he knew that wouldn't be enough to satisfy Peter's curiosity. Why did the boy have to insist on prying into things he had no business knowing? Why did he try to worm his way past every defense and every barrier of polite conversation - but always in such a hard-to-deny way, with his encouraging smile and his well-mannered delivery and eager eyes...   
  
"What do you mean?"   
  
Blaine paused, wanting to choose his words carefully so Peter would take what he was saying seriously instead of writing it off as melodramatic. It wasn't being melodramatic, it was being honest, and he needed to understand- "I know you can feel all of this as jazz," he began. "You can see the beauty in all of it. But I-...I'm not saying it's wrong," he stated. It was beyond that. "But even when I try to make something lovely from it, all I end up with is noise. Not jazz - banging on a piano until it breaks, and all you're left with is a half-smashed wooden box with a lot of snapped strings."   
  
Peter paused, trying to understand, and it was easy to see the precise moment he could see what Blaine was trying to tell him: his eyes widened slightly, eyebrows lowering in intense sympathy, mouth opening just a bit before he breathed out, "Oh, Blaine. My dear, dear boy- you didn't know what you were trying to play, that's all. You didn't-"   
  
The music metaphors were nice, and it was something he could relate to, but the idea of trying to come up with something that would explain the number of ways he'd ruined the people around him-...there was only so much imagery for the destruction of musical instruments and butchering songs that he could handle, and at some point- "I knew what I was doing," he stated, because he had. He had known. He may not have intended to cause all the pain he had, but he had known exactly what he was doing when he walked away. "I knew, but I thought- I mean I justified-...I told myself that it was his fault for pushing me when I was the one who shoved him as hard and as far as I could."   
  
Blaine wasn't sure how it was that he'd been able to almost forget about that face for years, but these days it was all he could see. Kurt's red cheeks and furious eyes brimming with tears as they stood in that hallway and he told him- He remembered it all so clearly in his nightmares: the smell of the smoke from the bonfire outside, the crumpled felt of the Stanford penant in his hand, and every insult he threw at Kurt about his dreams. Not just his dreams - his dreams  _for them_ , the things he wanted to be together for-   
  
Sometimes he almost managed to stop himself from saying anything. Once he'd carried a second penant with him - one for Columbia, the one Kurt had gotten him - and he promised his then-boyfriend that he would march back out and announce his change of plans. He had woken up feeling like he couldn't breathe, but he couldn't tell whether it was from panic or crushing longing for a life he knew had never been real. But it hadn't just been Kurt's face haunting him. His had been the worst - especially those  _eyes_ , God those hurt - but every heart he'd broken had been lingering on his mind lately: Evelyn...Jean...that girl Freshman year who thought they could be something until he'd gotten so drunk he'd accidentally made out with her roommate instead of with her...the only people he hadn't managed to hurt in the name of romance had been people who knew there was no romance to be had. One-night stands didn't feel betrayed by him because there was nothing to betray. But anything deeper...   
  
Was it just going to be him in a tiny, dark apartment forever? Because at this rate-   
  
"I end up destroying everyone," he stated quietly, staring at his hands.   
  
"What happened with him?" Peter asked gently.   
  
"Not just him," Blaine tried to buy himself time. He didn't even know where to begin to talk about  _him_...but it was true. "Evelyn and Jean and-"   
  
"Yes, but I know what went wrong with them." Peter smiled as though he'd said something clever, and Blaine shot him a dirty look. It wasn't that simple, surely - he'd tried so hard and it had imploded, usually because of his own impulsiveness and need to try to feel things.   
  
...And because of his condition, he supposed, but still.   
  
"What happened with him?" When Blaine didn't reply, still trying to figure out where in the world to start unraveling a year of torture buried beneath five years of denial and Jack Daniels, Peter added, "Or with more than one him?"   
  
Blaine choked out a laugh. "No - one. You think I'd go through all that a second time?"   
  
"Through all what?" Peter prompted, and Blaine sighed before beginning to speak haltingly.   
  
"I...shoved him away," he managed. "We'd been together five months - and flirting a lot longer than that, even if I tried not to. I couldn't help it, he had these eyes...and this  _voice_...he was like a Disney princess, he literally sang to- we had a bird who was our mascot? Since he was newest, Kurt was charged with taking care of Fleta, and he would sing to him like Snow White. He had the skin, too, the perfect porcelain white..." He wasn't sure why he was smiling, it hurt so badly to say any of it, but he couldn't help himself - thinking about Kurt in the car back from Lima, whistling along with a bird on his lap.   
  
"Was he handsome?" Peter asked, smiling, half-teasing gently to try to diffuse the tension.   
  
Blaine nodded, adding, "And beautiful. Just...stunning."   
  
"Good - with eyes like yours, you deserve stunning."   
  
Blaine stared at him, not sure how to take that. He blinked, then went back to trying to explain why he needed to stay away from people romantically. "He had all these dreams. All these things he wanted us to be, and things we would do in New York... Soirees and a life together. I think he figured we'd be the party scene from Breakfast at Tiffany's even though the movie hadn't come out yet."  
  
"Sounds lively."   
  
"Yes and no. He also talked about things like quiet nights at home, reading Vogue while I read the paper and we listened to records, things that were....so impossible but  _sounded_  so good...and he lured me in-" He stopped, shaking his head. That was how he'd framed it in his head for so many years, but it wasn't true, and it made Kurt sound vicious when in reality- "I wanted those things," he admitted, chest aching as he said it. He had loved the sound of what Kurt promised. "But I knew they couldn't happen, and I was...scared. There was a raid at the one place he'd convinced me was safe, and college acceptance letters were pouring in, and my father wanted me to go to Yale and Kurt wanted me to go to Columbia so he could join me the next year, and I wanted to have five minutes to myself to breathe, so I came here."   
  
Peter nodded slowly, then ventured, "I'm guessing from the way you talk about it, that he didn't take it well when you told him."   
  
"I...didn't," Blaine admitted. That had been the problem, hadn't it? At least in part - going to California instead of New York would have made Kurt angry regardless, but the  _way_  he had done it had made it so much worse. In front of a group of people, throwing everything they had been working toward in Kurt's face- Could he have been more cruel? No wonder Kurt had delighted in kissing Rachel like that in front of him the last time they'd seen each other, he was so badly hurt by it all and wanted to get whatever revenge he could. "I announced it in front of the entire school, and when he confronted me about it, I..."   
  
"...Destroyed everything in sight," Peter concluded, and Blaine nodded miserably. Peter waited for him to continue, but he couldn't. What else could he say? What else could he- describe the way Kurt had looked so betrayed? Ask if maybe Kurt was right after all about what New York was like, since he'd never been but he had a feeling Peter might know someone who had? The broad hand on his shoulder caught him by surprise, and he wanted to find it uncomfortable but couldn't - it felt warm, reassuring, supportive- He'd missed that so badly he couldn't say anything. "You made a mistake, Blaine." His tone was more tender than Blaine was expecting, though the words made him feel worse. Of course he had. Of course it had been a mistake, and certainly the way he had gone about- "You were young, you were afraid of who you were, and you didn't know what else to do."   
  
"I could have done something else," he tried.   
  
Peter laughed. "My dear boy, you spent the last five years drowning yourself in alcohol and a sea of attractive women to try to be something other than what you knew you were. There's no way you could have done anything else when you were 18. You didn't understand how to do anything but destroy the things around you. That doesn't make you an awful person." Blaine swallowed hard, nodding again. It felt like he was an awful person - and he was sure Kurt would have said the same thing. "It just means that now that you aren't so terrified, you can make good."   
  
"I doubt he'd ever talk to me again."   
  
Peter hesitated, then agreed, "Probably not, even if you could find him. But, believe it or not, the three of us and my two ex boyfriends are not the only homosexual men in the world. You'll find someone else - someone you can love and respect and have all those things with now that you aren't trying to beat the piano into submission." Blaine nodded, but he didn't feel so sure, and Peter smiled faintly in acknowledgment. "Here - let me make you a fresh cup." He took Blaine's mug and went to the counter, giving him a few moments and some space to try to sort everything out.   
  
Blaine doubted a few moments would do nearly enough, but he took the respite gratefully.


	10. Chapter 10

Spin Me Round sat on a busy corner two blocks past the far-west end of campus. While it was near-ish to  
the local high school, the relatively low number of teenagers in the college town meant that unlike many  
record shops, it wasn't overrun every afternoon. Blaine was glad; he had work to do and didn't feel like  
having to fight throngs of high school students to do it. Some of them were okay, but at every record  
store he'd ever seen they took over the listening room until they had to be home for dinner, and he really  
didn't want to need to wait until 7 to start working his way through the stack of potential 45's; he'd never  
get the rest of his homework done at that rate.  
  
He had run out of songs. Rather, the Mendicants had run out of songs, and he had run out of suggestions  
for new arrangements. It was kind of his own fault, he thought with a faint smile as he pulled open  
the glass door and stepped into the store. If he hadn't set the bar so high, insisting on at least one new  
arrangement per performance and at least one performance a week, they could have spread the wealth of  
songs over at least the full semester if not the whole year. He really couldn't feel bad about that, though,  
about the way he'd gotten a group of guys who had barely sung together before - and most of whom had  
never sung acapella before the previous year - so excited about performing new songs together.  
  
He supposed he couldn't take  _all_  the credit for it. The reaction from their adoring public probably  
helped incentivize them more than he did, but even so. He was proud of the group he had helped keep  
together. They were getting really good if he did say so himself, and they were almost hitting Warbler-  
level status around campus: people waited for them now on Thursdays at noon. When they marched out  
from the practice room, there were always people gathered near the arches specifically to hear them. And  
it seemed like the guys really looked up to and respected him - and not just because he was oldest or had  
been doing this longer than they had, not anymore. It was bigger than that.  
  
No matter what else he was doing wrong, he did have to admit he was doing  _something_  right.  
  
There were a few songs he had in mind, most of which had been shot down for one reason or another at  
the last practice. The guys had been in a collective mood this week - Blaine wasn't sure why, he guessed  
it was just that point in the term or something - and had shot down every suggestion by every person.  
Jerry's "She Loves You" and Craig's "Da Doo Ron Ron" (which Blaine thought would have sounded  
great for them) and Fitz's "Eve of Destruction" (which Blaine thought would never work without a big  
drum)...so that by the time Blaine had suggested "A Summer Song" by Chad and Jeremy, he had known it  
wouldn't go over well.  
  
But the good thing about picking songs was, there were always more out there. An entire store full,  
as a matter of fact, he thought with a grin as he surveyed the rows of neatly-ordered bins. He could  
guarantee there was at least one song in here the group would sound amazing on. With any luck, he'd be  
able to find enough to get them through the end of the semester, because he had a feeling that the group's  
disagreeability would only increase as finals drew nearer. At least if they could agree on a list now, they  
might make it through without too many arguments about the direction of the group later on.  
  
Mostly he just wanted an afternoon away. Lately everything had felt so oppressively thick with  
memories, and talking to Peter would be the only thing worse for that than sitting around his apartment  
with nothing but homework to try to occupy him. And since an evening at one of the fourteen nearby  
bars was no longer an option, he had decided to take the afternoon to go somewhere safe - and get  
something done that needed done anyway.  
  
He began with the closest bin - Current Hits, A-E. Whatever other disagreements the Mendicants  
might have, they at least could all agree that they wanted to keep doing songs girls on campus knew.  
  
Ivy League standards might work in New England, or as a novelty like their first performance, but the  
response was always better the more popular a song was. Blaine flicked through the cardboard sleeves,  
pondering options as he gave each cover at least passing consideration. He wondered if the Beatles had  
something new out - they did seem to be churning out a new album every month, and their four-part  
harmonies did lend themselves well to acapella music...plus the songs usually landed right in his sweet  
spot, which he never minded-  
  
Before he even got to Af-, he realized why this hadn't been the best idea.  
  
The Ad Libs sounded innocuous enough, like any other popular group that might sing doo-wop music -  
which at least a few of the Mendicants thought was too old-fashioned but Blaine thought was a great way  
to round out their repetoire with the advantage of being incredibly easy to arrange for the group - but as  
he picked up the album and turned it over to see the listing of songs, one stood out immediately:  
  
 _The Boy from New York City_  
  
Blaine swallowed hard, turning the album back over. That was the last thing he wanted to sing about.  
  
Except it wasn't, not really. If he were being honest with himself, it was the only thing he wanted to sing about - wasn't it? Wasn't that why he'd wanted to sing the Chad and Jeremy song? It was all about a beautiful and carefree day in a summer romance that sadly had to come to an end but had been lovely while it lasted - why else had he wanted so badly to do that one if not because of Kurt?  
  
He just needed to sing out everything somehow. He needed to get it all out - like throwing up the morning after drinking way too much. It would feel awful, but at least then it would be over and he could feel better.  
  
But obviously the Mendicants couldn't sing this. Not unless it was a song they could easily enough convert to "The Girl from New York City," and even then he doubted they would want to sing something with a female lead - Craig seemed to be the only one who didn't mind it.  
  
He wondered if Craig was...like him. The only boys he had ever known who didn't mind singing girl songs all were, so it might make sense, but he had no idea how to tell without asking him outright and he certainly wasn't about to do that.   
  
Unable to put the album down, he tucked it under his arm as he continued to thumb through the records in search of something more useful. He was safe for a few minutes until he reached Co-. Connie Francis' photo smiled up at him, and he wondered if Kurt had this one yet. He assumed he did, he'd been a pretty big fan - and sounded really good on her songs. He wondered if Kurt still sounded the same, or if his voice had finally started to drop a little. Did Kurt still sing? If he wasn't in college, he probably didn't have many opportunities to - assuming the boy could stop. Blaine knew he never could, whether he had a place to perform or not, and Kurt had channeled so much emotion into his songs...  
  
For that matter, he had no idea if Kurt was in college or not. He had certainly been smart enough, and Dalton strongly encouraged its young men to go to an elite school, but then...Kurt had always marched to his own drum, hadn't he? And he had talked about going into fashion and being a famous designer, which was more like an apprenticeship than something requiring a formal education. Though for all he knew, Kurt had never even gone to New York-  
  
Who was he kidding? Of course Kurt had. He was the single most driven person Blaine had ever met, and he was the kind of boy who was certain beyond a doubt of what he wanted and then went after it. There was no way Kurt had let himself get derailed from his dream.  
  
Which meant the only real question was whether Kurt was singing Connie Francis in the small but lavishly-decorated apartment high above Manhattan.  
  
Blaine tucked the album under his arm, along with the Ad Libs and the new Beatles, and moved down the row. So far he had virtually nothing he could work with but two different records that would remind him of demons he really wanted to forget about.  
  
Dusty Springfield surprised him at the back of the first bin. He hadn't expected to find- Peter said she was popular in the UK, but Blaine hadn't seen her on anything yet, so he assumed she hadn't invaded yet. No women really had, at least not the same way the Beatles and all the subsequent groups had... He picked up the album, studying her. She looked upbeat enough, much happier and younger than her music sounded. But then, he supposed that did suit him anyway, didn't it? No one but Peter knew how he felt all the time - they took his smile at face value. He added her record to his stack; if she was going to be the music that represented him, he thought he should probably listen to more than part one song, right?  
  
By the time he got to the end of the row, he had a sizable collection under his arm - the Four Tops, Temptations, Manfred Mann even though he doubted any of their subsequent singles was quite as great for acapella singing as "Doo Wah Diddy." Glancing across to the listening room, he could see three girls through the thick glass. Blaine sighed and tried to figure out where would be best to kill time until they vacated the space. He had already picked through all the current albums, maybe the next row-  
  
Blaine swallowed hard as he saw the sign informing shoppers that the next row held cast recordings.  
  
He knew he should have expected that there would be a place within the store devoted to Broadway and movies - musicals were as popular now as they ever had been, and there were some great ones he was sure. He hadn't really kept up on them since coming out to college - he couldn't, not after- but he was sure there were great songs in those bins. The other guys might be harder to sell on the idea, but Blaine was confident if they could just hear some of the love songs...those songs would get any girl the Mendicants could possibly want. The soaring romance and the dramatic swells of music in the background as these two characters who had been yearning for one another came together-  
  
He had loved musicals once. He had loved a lot of things once, but musicals...those had been among the hardest to give up.   
  
It wasn't that the songs as a whole were inherently dangerous. Even though many of his father's patients enjoyed a good musical, plenty of them also enjoyed opera or classical music and his father had never seen fit to discourage that in the house. It was just too wrenching to hear songs and mentally recast Kurt in the role - to try to hear that voice singing those mournful, lovestruck lyrics- and at the same time, to try  _not_  to hear him, because that damned siren song of his...  
  
He wondered if Kurt still sounded as incredible on "Somewhere" as he had when they had won Regionals, or if he still yearned to be "An Ordinary Couple", or-  
  
Blaine practically cheered in relief as he saw the girls in the listening room gathering their belongings. Albums still tucked under his arm, he scurried away from the soundtracks. Never had he been so glad to close the door behind him and revel in the sanctuary of the private space where he could tune out everything except the music. He set his records next to a stack left by the girls and sat in the plush armchair closest to the turntable. The room was silent, the conversations and ambient sounds from the store unable to penetrate the thick window that served as the proprietor's lone assurance that teenagers weren't trying to fornicate in his private room. Blaine pulled a notebook and pen from his bag to make notes, then settled back in his chair and let out a long exhale as he finally felt more able to relax.  
  
The relief was short-lived as he put on the first [record](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3TPYmeSqLjc) in his stack.  
  
 _Oo-wah, oo-wah, cool cool kitty  
Tell us about the boy from New York City  
Oo-wah, oo-wah, c'mon kitty  
Tell us about the boy from New York City  
  
He's kinda tall  
He's really fine  
Some day I hope to make him mine, all mine_  
  
He could imagine Kurt walking down Fifth Avenue, posture tall and proud as ever, in a strange but nonetheless exquisite overcoat, with his glasz eyes turned almost pure blue in the late afternoon light. His face would be radiant as he strode easily past men who hurried for cabs, cheeks pinked by the early bite of fall chill, all completely stunning-  
  
Blaine swallowed hard past the lump in his throat. Yes, Kurt had been- had been and probably remained  _beautiful_ , and maybe the simple acknowledgment of that truth wasn't nearly as damning a fact as he'd once thought, but that didn't give him license to spend all afternoon daydreaming.  
  
He didn't want to, anyway; it was nothing but painful.  
  
He raised the arm quickly and removed the record, slipping it back into the sleeve. The song would have been great for an acapella group with a female member to sing lead, but even if he were willing to admit to anyone beyond himself and Peter how he felt about a certain boy in the Big Apple, he certainly would never sing something like that in public.   
  
The rest of the stack was going to be just as painful, he thought to himself dejectedly. Why had he let himself pick up so many that he knew would remind him of Kurt? What in the world was he thinking, grabbing Connie Francis? He was supposed to be working on things for the Mendicants, and if they wouldn't sing The Crystals there was no way in a million years they would sing something by a female solo singer- he had picked it up for no reason but nostalgia, and the ache that seemed to grow with each passing day was at an all time high.   
  
He just needed something to clear his head, Blaine concluded with a nod. Just something to erase the unhealthy obsession that was building again and let him get back to normal so he could get his work done. There were, after all, a few albums in there that had nothing at all to do with any boy, he just needed to get out of this mindset and let himself listen to chords and harmonies instead of finding too much meaning in everything.  
  
Blaine reached over and snagged the [single](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=56m63bsQvB8) off the top of the stack the girls had left and placed it on the player without glancing at it. They had looked like your average teenagers, dressed neatly from school in bright pinks and greens and cheery yellows, their music was bound to be something popular and upbeat.   
  
 _I walk along the city streets you used to walk along with me_  
  
Blaine froze. This wasn't at all what he needed - any song that began that way couldn't possibly be the antidote to the sort of obsessive remembrance he seemed to be doing these days. He should take this record off and pull another one from the stack. Any other one, any other-... But he couldn't. He couldn't bring himself to do anything but settle back in the chair and listen.  
  
 _And every step I take recalls how much in love we used to be  
Oh how can I forget you  
When there is always something there to remind me?_  
  
It felt like Kurt was all around him these days. After more than four years of not thinking of him at all, the sudden intrusion left him feeling strangled, like he couldn't breathe because everything was so full of reminders of what he had done, of the mistakes he had made-  
  
It had been easier when he had been drunk, he realized glumly. It had been so much easier to force himself not to remember- let alone to let himself  _feel_  - any of the oppressive weight of regret when he could barely remember the night before. And feeling girls under him, reveling in the normalcy of it...or what he had thought was normalcy, anyway...it had all been so helpful in banishing the memories and convincing himself it had all been one big mistake best left unremembered.   
  
But there had been good things, and seemingly magical times, and afternoons with just the two of them and a record player in a tiny dorm room, on a too-narrow bed with very little light peeking through closed blinds...  
  
He knew it was probably just the way alcohol numbed things - like kissing and feelings of regret - but he swore he had felt more strongly for Kurt than for anyone since. Maybe it was just because he hadn't given anyone the chance...he hadn't spent more than a couple nights with anyone, and feelings took time to develop. Maybe it was because he really couldn't have those same feelings for a girl. Maybe Kurt was special even among boys.  
  
Of course Kurt was special - he was apart among  _everyone_. He was practically magical in his ability to hold onto optimism even in the most depressing circumstances. He had literally moved to Dalton because his own town had decided they would rather defy federal law than integrate, but Kurt believed in a world where no one would care that he was best friends with a black girl and dating a boy. He  _really_  believed it, too, he hadn't just put on a brave front for them. He could see men getting arrested for going the same place they did, and honestly believe it was just a problem in Ohio.  
  
 _Always something there to remind me_  
  
Blaine couldn't listen to musicals anymore. He hated that, he hated how much he ached to give up a style of music that helped him let out everything he felt - to act out everything he could never say, to get swept up in the romance and emotion and the raw power of song...but how could he listen when he kept casting his ex boyfriend in every production in his mind?  
  
 _I was born to love you  
And I will never be free  
You'll always be a part of me_  
  
That couldn't be true, could it? Blaine thought desperately, fighting the urge to panic. Even if he was unfortunate enough to be saddled with having to fall in love with men instead of women...that meant he had to be suffering enough already, surely. He couldn't be stuck feeling like this forever. That would be too cruel for any one person to bear - feeling this regret and longing so strongly for his life?  
  
He ached just thinking about it, his chest tight and painful as he desperately wanted to struggle against the invisible bands restraining his midsection. This feeling had to go away somehow, didn't it? It couldn't possibly last forever, even if he had no idea how to get rid of it.   
  
Blaine tried the only thing he could think of - the only thing that usually made the unbearably intense feelings inside him subside to a manageable level: he sang along.  
  
 _If you should find you miss the sweet and simple love we used to share  
Just come back to the places where we used to go and I'll be there_  
  
The singer's voice didn't sound half as anguished as Blaine's did. Maybe she was lucky enough to have never felt this. He envied the thought.  
  
There was something that felt safe about the soundproofed room, that felt almost like the dorm room had so many years ago - it was a safe place to let things out. He guessed his apartment was, too, he'd just never tried. Usually that was where he went to stew and feel trapped inside himself instead of letting everything out, instead of draining the infected wound that just kept hurting and drawing his attention back to things he would rather not think about.  
  
 _Oh how can I forget you  
When there is always something there to remind me?  
Always something there to remind me_  
  
He wasn't sure if that were really true, if he were being honest. On one hand, he wanted nothing more than to forget any of it ever happened, to shove all the memories back down under a heavy bottle of alcohol where they had unhappily resided for four years now. He wanted to be able to think about things Peter was trying to tell him without always coming back to the pain he had caused the boy who had loved and trusted him so deeply. He wanted to be able to imagine ever finding something that would make him happy without always returning to the time he had been happy - terrified, too, yes, but with moments of joy - but had ruined it.   
  
But at the same time, the idea of a collection of memories without Kurt felt... _wrong_. Painful. Empty, like a hole had been ripped right in the middle of a piece of paper and there was nothing else he could find to fill it because nothing else would fit right. He didn't want to get rid of the memories, he wanted to  _change_  them, to be able to go back the way he could in his dreams and-...and go to Columbia or tell Kurt in advance and help him come out to California, to go back in time and maybe believe the boy's vision of the future enough to try to live it.  
  
 _I was born to love you  
And I will never be free  
When there is always something there to remind me_  
  
Assuming anything like Kurt's vision of the future actually existed. Assuming he wasn't in jail somewhere from a raid, or miserable in a tiny college town, or drinking himself sick the same way Blaine had been.  
  
Blaine knew it was dumb to worry - he couldn't do anything about it, and even if he could, Kurt was the most self-sufficient person he knew - but he couldn't help it. He wondered if he ever could.  
  
 _Always something there to remind me_  
  
He couldn't tie a long necktie without remembering the way Kurt's fingers had delicately pulled the knot loose, then undone, while they listened to music, flicked open the collar button, and looked human for the first time all day instead of like some exquisite robot who was amazing at everything. He looked like any other schoolboy but so stunningly poised even in his casual state-  
  
 _Always something there to remind me_  
  
He could never decide whether he should make a beeline for the latest issue of Vogue to see whether Kurt had any designs in there under his own name, or avoid it entirely because the idea of staring at a fashion magazine was just too problematic - and too painful as his brain supplied helpful commentary of what Kurt would think of each look, gleaned from all the times they had looked at the magazine together over the course of that year.  
  
 _Always something there to remind me_  
  
Every so often, while he was walking past the practice rooms, he would hear a note in high, clear falsetto and stop, his heart racing a moment as he wondered if maybe Kurt had followed him after all. If maybe after all this time, he had gotten over his anger and chased him- but it was never him, and Blaine knew it never would be.  
  
High F's and G's had never been so excruciating.  
  
 _Always something there to remind me_  
  
He snapped out of the private world as soon as the song faded away and hopped off the table he had ended up on top of in his frenzied, emotional singing. What had he been thinking? This wasn't his apartment, or even his dorm room back at a campus far away and a lifetime ago. It wasn't even somewhere near the arches where he could pass this off as a deliberate performance for a gathering crowd of adoring fans. He was in public, in a  _store_ , had he lost all sense of himself and-  
  
He looked up, expecting to see all the shoppers in the moderately busy store staring at him through the thick soundproof glass. He had certainly been visible enough- and  _foolish_. There were so many appropriate times and ways to exorcise his demons through song, but this had been far too public. A mistake.  
  
But no one had noticed. Blaine could see easily more than a dozen people, maybe closer to 15 or 18, in the small-ish store - teenage couples browsing for love songs and groups of friends picking through singles to share and a mom with a toddler on her hip searching through the soundtracks bin Blaine had managed to avoid...but not one of them so much as glanced his direction.   
  
He was relieved...mostly.   
  
Head slumping low, he picked up the only album he had any use for and made his way to the checkout; the clerk said nothing about his impromptu display in the listening room.   
  
The Mendicants would just have to deal with the unseasonable song about a summer love. Blaine wasn't sure he would be able to concentrate on anything else long enough to sing it anyway.  
  
* * * * *  
  
When there was a knock on his door at 9:30 on Saturday night, Blaine assumed someone must have remembered where he lived and wanted to drag him out somewhere to loosen him up after his 'absence' from the Stanford social scene. After all, everyone else was already either at parties or - if the party was going to be really good - on their way to parties at this hour. Either that, or they were among the most studious degree candidates and had hunkered down in the library for the evening.  
  
Or, like Blaine, they had hunkered down in their apartments for a long evening of doing nothing, followed by a full night's sleep.  
  
He slipped off the bed and padded to the door, calling out a quick, "Who is it?" His pajamas were perfectly presentable, and very comfortable in navy blue silk, but the former campus party king simply could not allow himself to be seen dressed for bed at 9:30 on a Saturday.   
  
"It's your knight in shining Italian wool, ready to save you from another weekend of boredom." Peter's voice sounded playful, which Blaine had heard only a few times - usually he was busy being serious and trying so hard to teach him that he couldn't let his guard down enough to tease very much. Interest piqued, Blaine opened the door to find the smiling young man dressed in a full-cut double-breasted suit. Chains looped down the baggy leg of his trousers on the left side, and he wore a red necktie as well as a red silk handkerchief in his breast pocket; the brightly coloured fabric stood out against the black wool with its white pinstripes. On his head, he wore a black fedora, and Blaine was surprised to see that the band wasn't white or red to match the rest of the outfit, but black satin that glinted only subtly against the black felt of the hat. Of all the times he had seen Peter, this was by far the most formally the man had been dressed, and that was saying a lot. "In your pajamas already?" He clucked his tongue and shook his head disapprovingly. "Understandable, what with your reformed ways, but unnecessary. Go change - I'm taking you out."  
  
"Out where?" Blaine asked. He was surprised, considering Peter's edicts had always leaned in favour of him staying in on weekends and away from the sorts of temptations that were ubiquitous around campus this time of the week.  
  
"It's a surprise. Get dressed."  
  
"Dressed in what?" Blaine asked, hoping to gain some clues from the dress code. Judging from Peter's ensemble, it was formal...but then, Peter's ensemble was rarely related to anything that anyone else at the party would be wearing. Even so, Blaine went to his closet and pulled out his best pair of trousers and a crisp white button-down shirt.  
  
"Whatever makes you feel best," Peter replied, striding into the apartment and closing the door behind him. His wingtips clacked authoritatively on the floor as he slowly approached the bed, smiling as he picked up the copy of The Berlin Stories Blaine had left on the nightstand. "You started reading the Isherwood?"  
  
Reading might have been a bit strong of a word for it; Blaine had spent most of the time alternating between horrified and terrified by the behaviour described. "Bits of it," he replied, which he felt was honest at any rate.  
  
"I wish you'd told me. I would have suggested you start on Peter and Otto - it's less scandalous than the excesses of Sally Bowles." In truth, Blaine hadn't made it to either story and simply smiled before disappearing into the bathroom to change into his clothes, snagging his favourite sweater from the closet as he went - red with a black plaid covering the cardigan. "And you bought- wait, did I lend you this? Oh, wait, no, it's new," Peter commented with an audible grin. "You bought Dusty?"  
  
It had been Blaine's only purchase at the record store, but it had been on his turntable almost nonstop for the past three days. "You said she was my musical equivalent," he pointed out, and Peter chuckled.  
  
"That I did. I don't have this one, but several of the songs are on albums I do have - it looks like she's trying to invade at least. Thank God. Do you know how difficult it is to orchestrate international record purchases? I can cross her off my list finally."  
  
"Yeah, I found it at Spin Me Round."  
  
"Where is that?" Peter asked.   
  
"You haven't been there?"  
  
"I've tried a few other record stores, but keep in mind you've been in this town four years longer than I have."  
  
"I'll take you the next time I go," Blaine replied. "I can't speak for what their jazz section looks like, I've never looked, but-"  
  
"Worth a check at any rate," Peter agreed.  
  
Blaine fixed his hair in the mirror as he called, "So you never told me where we're going...did you?"  
  
"No," Peter replied simply.  
  
Blaine waited for the furtherance of a response - for Peter to add a 'you're right, how clumsy of me' and a location - and when none came, he began to feel uneasy. "Where?"  
  
"You'll see."  
  
The cryptic response made him more anxious still, and he swallowed hard to fight the urge to feign a stomach virus that would render him unable to go to whatever undoubtedly dangerous place Peter planned on taking him to. It had to be somewhere he wouldn't agree to go on his own, he knew, because otherwise Peter would just say it - he wasn't one for surprises, really, and he certainly didn't spring things on Blaine except when they were something that he knew would make him back out of the conversation...or, in this case, the outing. "Isn't it the kind of thing I should know before I agree to go?" he asked hopefully as he nervously tried to twist a curl back into place.  
  
"My dear Blaine. Do you trust me?"  
  
Blaine sighed, because Peter knew the answer to that. He had no idea  _why_  the answer was yes, but it was. It had been the last time Peter had asked, too, about the records... Blaine wasn't sure what it was about Peter that made him seem trustworthy even when he was doing something like tossing books about horrible things his way, or telling him scandalous stories about making out with Frenchmen, but still he was so darn likeable... And more than that, Blaine reminded himself, anyone who had literally carried him home and put him to bed when he was in an incredibly vulnerable state had to be the sort of gentleman who could be trusted. So far not a single thing Peter had done would indicate he would lead Blaine into harm, and so- "Yes," he replied reluctantly.  
  
He could hear the grin in Peter's voice as he replied, "Excellent. Now. Almost ready?" Blaine stepped out of the bathroom, and Peter smiled broadly at what he saw. "The very picture of a scholar and a gentleman," he praised.  
  
"Should I wear a bow-tie, or-" Blaine asked as he reached over for a black, red, and white one he especially liked that went well with the sweater.  
  
"Clearly I always say yes to a good tie," Peter replied, indicating his own neckwear, and Blaine smiled faintly as he began to expertly knot the bow-tie, pausing to glance in the mirror only once. "Are you this good with all ties?" he joked.  
  
"Well-practiced," Blaine replied. He tucked his wallet into his pocket and looked up at Peter expectantly, waiting for the next move. "Anything else I'll need?"  
  
Peter shook his head. "Just me - now come along. We don't want to be late."


	11. Chapter 11

  
"You're telling me you've lived in this area for four and a half years and have never been north of Redwood City?" Peter asked, incredulous. He took his eyes off the road a moment to glance over at Blaine with a sort of disbelieving pity, then resumed focus much to Blaine's relief. While the 101 wasn't nearly as crowded at nearly 10 pm on a Saturday as he imagined it might be during rush hour, he still would rather not be splattered across the highway because a certain eccentric young man wanted to ask about his travel habits.   
  
"No - the airport's north of there," Blaine pointed out, and Peter shook his head.  
  
"Airports don't count. I've been to airports in all sorts of places I've never  _been_. You never went up to San Francisco? Or checked out Berkeley?"  
  
"Why?" Blaine asked. Of all the things he might have chosen to do if he had no other obligations - no schoolwork, no important parties to go to, no rehearsals - none of them took him that far from campus. He certainly didn't need to find someone to drive him to another campus more than an hour away.  
  
"Because they're there," Peter replied as though it were the most obvious thing in the world. "Because there are all sorts of people to meet who would never just happen to wander through Stanford. We live in one of the most interesting places in the country and you don't venture more than a mile outside your home?" He sighed and shook his head, shooting another piteous glance Blaine's way. "You'll never meet Kerouac that way."  
  
"Isn't it unlikely I would meet him anywhere else?" Blaine asked. He'd heard of Kerouac enough to understand Peter's reference, but from what little he knew, the author was kind of a wandering writer who ended up any number of places but never stayed for long. Or at least, that was what "On the Road" implied, right?  
  
He really hoped this wasn't shaping up to be Peter's version - he hadn't brought anything with him except his wallet, and he should at least have a few changes of clothes if the guy was going to insist on a road trip. Besides, while he could miss a class or two, he really couldn't be out longer than a few days and-  
  
"Do you have a destination in mind?" Blaine asked, and he was relieved when Peter nodded. "Where?"  
  
"A place up in the city I've heard great things about," Peter replied simply but with a genuine smile. At least that meant it was something Peter believed and wasn't just telling him to try to calm him. Blaine wasn't sure if that was much conslation, considering his companion had a much lower sense of both danger and propriety than he did, but... He took a deep breath as he reminded himself that he had honestly said he trusted Peter. He did.  
  
He just hoped tonight didn't destroy the trust...or anything else.  
  
The buildings were much lower than he expected as they drove into the city. Blaine guessed he was used to associating the idea of a sizable metropolis with places like New York - or Chicago, but mostly New York - with gleaming modern-looking skyscrapers and office buildings that towered over crowded narrow streets. The street was wider than he would have imagined, lined with structures that, while taller than the homes in Palo Alto, were not nearly as imposing as he had envisioned. Most stood four or six stories, unable to reach much higher without facing certain destruction in the next big earthquake. Technology was better now than it had been in 1906, Blaine was sure, but apparently not enough. New York didn't have to worry about things like that.  
  
Peter turned off the wide street, car bouncing slightly as they crossed the streetcar tracks, onto a more crowded, hilly boulevard. He turned again, leaning forward to peer through the windshield at the dimly-lit street as he mumbled, "Now, let's see...it should be...hmm...ah! Yes." Blaine looked around, still unsure of where precisely they were or what possible thing there could be in the area to be excited about. Peter turned for a final time and parked the car.  
  
Blaine stepped out of the car, looking around. It was clear the area was full of mostly restaurants and taverns from the people milling around at such an unsual hour, though not one of the dozen or so buildings he could see looked as though it had been painted recently. Signs crumbled above dingy doors and old windows, but it didn't look like a dangerous area in the least. It reminded him of areas near Dalton that had been roaring in the 20s but had been unrenovated since the stockmarket crash of 1929: the food inside was no less tasty than at the diners with shiny chrome edging on each new red booth, but the downtrodden appearance made the prospect of eating there seem less appealing. "Where are we?" he asked Peter. The young man didn't seem disappointed by their surroundings, glancing around and peering at distant signs as though getting his bearings. "Peter-"  
  
"Just off Polk," he replied.  
  
"Why?" Blaine asked, not sure how else to ask for clarification because the street name meant nothing to him.   
  
"Because that's where people like us go, my boy," he replied. His face split into a proud grin, and Blaine's stomach suddenly went cold and queasy. That was where Peter had brought him? To somewhere they were bound to get caught, be arrested, put in the paper like those men in Ohio-  
  
"You know, I don't think I can stay-" he tried as he fought the urge to panic. How dumb had he been, just getting in the car with Peter when clearly the boy was trying to surprise him with something? What in the world had he been thinking, coming when he wouldn't even have a way of getting home until Peter deemed that they had spent enough time risking their lives and reputations?   
  
Peter's grin faded, but he simply replied in an even voice, "Of course you can." It lacked the enthusiasm of his previous statement and seemed more resigned, as though he had known Blaine wouldn't like this. Why he had insisted on bringing him anyway, Blaine wanted to know. "Now come along. The one we want is out on the main street." He turned and started down the hill away from the car, but Blaine couldn't. He felt frozen, wanting nothing more desperately than to be able to get back into the vehicle and go back the way he had come. There was no way this could end in anything but disaster - if he were arrested, for one thing he was sure his parents would find out somehow. He wasn't entirely sure how, but they would. And his career- they didn't let homosexuals teach children, did they? Not even music? Did they let homosexuals hold  _any_  jobs? Because he was pretty sure that as soon as he was in the newspaper for being arrested-  
  
...But he couldn't very well go back without Peter. For one thing, the older man had the keys tucked in his pocket; for another, he certainly couldn't steal the car Peter had borrowed from his friend. He had exactly two options: Wait beside a locked car all evening in a city he had never been to, in a part of the city that looked rundown and potentially strange as the bars nearby closed...or...  
  
He drew in a deep breath and followed Peter down to Polk Street, then left. "Here it is," Peter stated, veering toward a heavy wooden door. The windows on either side of the door were small-ish and dark...like a couple bars back at school, he tried to reassure himself. It was probably just to keep the inside dim and intimate. Or maybe they hadn't been able to build something bigger - that was all. Peter wouldn't lead him into a trap, at least not knowingly, and so whatever was on the side of that door had to be perfectly safe.  
  
Right?  
  
Peter tugged on the door handle and seemed surprised when the door opened. "With a door like that, I thought for sure it would be speakeasy-style," he commented. "A few of the bars in Europe are that way, it gives them a fantastically dangerous atmosphere."  
  
"Is that a good thing?" Blaine asked. This felt more than dangerous enough for him without a bouncer's eyes peering through a small opening in the door and passwords to say.  
  
"Why not embrace it?" Peter replied with a slight wave of his hand as he ushered Blaine through the door and into the entryway. "They may have been criminals in the 20s, but they were standing up for what they thought was right. Flouting an unjust law that shouldn't have been passed. Taking pride in their right to control their own evenings." That didn't sound at all like what Blaine thought had been the moral of the era - that excess led to a horrible Depression and that mobsters used an illegal market to live outside the law and just shoot entire groups of rivals - but he was too distracted to challenge the assertion.  
  
The entryway was small, just large enough to fit three or four people and allow the second door to swing open. Every surface appeared to be covered in thick dark wood like the door - weathered to a point of uneven smoothness, the grain exaggerated in the dim light from the tiny globe lamp above their heads. Peter reached for the second door, and Blaine was able to speak up. "Is this really a good idea?" he asked around the lump of panic in his throat.   
  
Peter's smile gleamed white even under the dark shadow cast by his fedora. "The best," he replied. When he saw that the answer didn't satisfy Blaine, he added, "You said you trust me, remember?"  
  
"I- I do," Blaine replied. "It's not  _that_ , it's just..."  
  
"Just what?" Peter prompted, fingers tightening around the door handle. "You trust me except what?"  
  
Blaine didn't know how to explain to Peter how he could simultaneously trust him and distrust their situation so deeply, so he simply forced the best grin he could. "Except nothing," he replied, and Peter's grin stretched wider.  
  
"Perfect," he replied and tugged open the door, leading Blaine through quickly before the door swung closed with a heavy-sounding  _whump_. "Oh-  _perfect_."  
  
The inside of the bar was certainly dim, especially through the smoke that hung thickly in the air and gave the entire place a hazy, half-hidden quality. Blaine was pretty sure that wasn't deliberate - at least he hoped not. He really hoped the bar's last line of defense against a raid wasn't a group of chainsmokers because that didn't seem very foolproof. The lighting came from a combination of wall sconces - glass globes mounted every five or seven feet with warm but insufficient light inside - and almost-matching candle globes on each table, as well as from the stage area that took up the front quarter of the room. The platform was barely raised six inches off the floor - maybe not even that much, Blaine concluded as he peered further - but the girl performing didn't seem to notice. She was [singing](http://youtu.be/NSehtaY6k1U) like every record executive was seated at the front table and this was her chance to impress them. Her dark complexion contrasted heavily against her bright pink gown, so much so that at first glance from the back of the room only the dress showed up as the light caught the sparkling fabric rather than her skin. She wore her hair in a short black bob that made her round face look even rounder and drew attention to just how much makeup she was wearing - but her confidence shown through so clearly that for a moment Blaine's panic subsided enough to allow envy to creep in.  
  
"Over here," Peter urged, and Blaine tore his eyes from the stage for a moment to allow himself to be led to one of the tables in the center of the room. There were about fifteen of them, though Blaine didn't care enough to count, round and the right size for two chairs - three in a pinch. Peter removed his jacket with a bit of a flourish and hung it carefully over the back of the chair as he asked, "Will you be okay here for a minute?"  
  
Blaine had no idea what the truthful answer would be, since for all he knew the police could burst in at any moment, but he knew what Peter wanted to hear. "Of course," he replied with the best smile he could muster. "I'll just watch," he added, indicating the stage.  
  
"Hm?" Peter glanced up as though he hadn't seen the performer before - how could he not? Blaine wondered. How could she not be the first thing everyone noticed? "Oh - absolutely. 'E's great."  
  
Between the way Peter turned as he said it, and the music playing loudly over the speakers, and his naturally somewhat muddled accent that Blaine thought was probably the product of trying to sound elite in too many different regions, he could have sworn Peter had said  _he_.  
  
Blaine blinked in confusion but kept watching. She strutted across the stage in a way that managed to look powerful but still undoubtedly feminine in her high heels - black, to match her gloves and the underlining of the wide piece of fabric draped over her shoulder. He did cringe as he saw a bright white tag dangling from the side of her dress - it must be new. If he ever forgot to take the pricetag off something he wore to perform in, he would be mortified, but she didn't seem to notice.  
  
Her voice grew in power until by the end of the song, she was practically belting the notes - not quite, her tone was coming from a different place that Blaine wasn't sure he'd ever heard before, much more like head voice but still not exactly...maybe he just wasn't used to a black woman sounding like that and kept expecting either the sweet girls from when he was younger or the powerful voice that Aretha had. In any event, her uniqueness just made her even more captivating of performer.  
  
Blaine couldn't help but applaud wildly as she finished, beaming and trying to catch her eye. It was something he liked to do - as a performer, it was easy to forget the applause was coming from individual people, but every so often he would catch the gaze of someone who had so clearly enjoyed the show, and it always gave him a rush to know how much someone had liked his performance. He wanted to be sure she knew how incredible she had been...though from the broad grin on her face, she certainly had some inkling.  
  
He looked over, hands pausing, as he heard Peter set two glasses on the table and retake his seat. "Welcome back."  
  
"Thanks," Peter smiled, and as the applause died down Blaine shifted to face him instead of the stage. Peter raised a double scotch to his lips, and Blaine reached for his own drink but found a glass of Coke instead.  
  
"Where's mine?" he asked, confused. Clearly tonight was an evening that Peter saw fit for a little relaxation, they were at a bar that Peter had not only condoned but dragged him to, why-  
  
"Oh no," Peter chuckled, shaking his head so his lips dragged lightly against the rim of the glass. "None for you. The last thing we need is for you to start hitting on the lesbians."  
  
"Oh come on, I wouldn't-"  
  
"Really?" Peter asked dryly, clear from the raise of his eyebrow that he didn't believe a word of it.   
  
"I may have done some dumb things in the past, but I've never-"  
  
"That you know of," Peter pointed out with a faint impish smirk, and Blaine's confidence faded a little. Peter did kind of have a point...especially since he couldn't really remember every girl he'd made a pass at. He settled back in his seat a little and sipped his drink without complaint, glancing around the room to try to get a better sense of his surroundings. Men occupied most of the tables, twos and threes mostly with a few individuals at their own place, and several more sat on stools at the long bar that took up most of the right side of the room. It wasn't hard to guess who these men were, even though in the dim light very few of them looked like the men he remembered his father treating. He didn't know what the difference was, especially because both groups had certainly been varied but there was something...different. Not better, definitely not worse, but there nonetheless.  
  
He looked up onstage, where three oddly tall performers were mouthing and dancing along to "In His Kiss," choreographed to perfection but without any innate spark. In fact, the only glimmer in the act appeared to come from their dresses, which were black with silver beads up around the neckline and down around the hem-  
  
And all of which sported the same white tag he had seen on the singer's gown.  
  
"Are they all doing a tribute to Minnie Pearl?" Blaine asked.  
  
"What?" Peter laughed, and Blaine guessed he could understand why since the question had kind of come out of nowhere.  
  
"Their dresses all have the price tag on them. So did the last one. Why would anyone do that on purpose?"  
  
"Queens fighting idiocy," Peter replied with a proud grin. When Blaine stared at him blankly, he set down his drink and explained, "There's a very old law out here that prohibits men dressing as women with intent to deceive someone. One of the local big-deal drag queens decided to start handing out tags that said 'I am a boy' so that if any police officers tried to harass them, they could point out that they were being honest. Ergo, no intent to deceive." He laughed to himself as though it were still the most delightfully clever thing, but Blaine couldn't help but be nervous as soon as law enforcement was mentioned. Police harassed-...well, cross-dressers, men who wore sequins and wigs and heels-...he assumed they harassed homosexuals, too, and if he were caught-  
  
"Do you think maybe we should go?" he asked, fiddling with his straw.  
  
"Don't tell me you're that afraid of a boy in a gown," Peter chuckled, then paused and looked at him. "Why are you so scared right now?" he asked, his voice gentle enough to show he wanted an actual answer and wasn't trying to belittle Blaine, but firm enough that Blaine knew no answer he could give would convince Peter to leave.  
  
"If there's a raid-" he began, but Peter shook his head quickly to cut him off.  
  
"That doesn't happen out here," he stated."Not anymore. There's...well, sort of an understanding. The police try to put a stop to our kind, but we're cunning. We know the laws, and we get around them. It's a cat-and-mouse game. Or, on good nights, Wile E. Coyote." The smirk, combined with the reference, seemed almost juvenile for Peter, but he continued. "They fight back out here. All these bars and restaurants on this street are for us - well, almost. None of them used to be, but one of the older gentlemen at the bar was telling me about how the neighbourhood used to be exclusively blue collar, family places that didn't even like single men hanging around, but after they started to see how many homosexuals were about, how many wanted a place to eat and drink and be out on the town with their friends, they changed." He looked Blaine in the eye as he added, "There's that many of us out here, Blaine. And they can't arrest us all, now, can they?"  
  
"Probably not," Blaine allowed, head spinning at the thought- people knew there were homosexuals, and in great enough numbers to justify entire restaurants? The only place he'd known of before with more than two of them had been the hospital his father frequently took patients to. But really, the entire street?  
  
He hadn't seen any police as they walked, he recalled; if there were so many of them here-...if there were  _entire restaurants full_  the way Peter seemed to say...then surely if the police wanted to catch people breaking the law it wouldn't be hard. They could just drive through and pull the first people they saw, but there...there hadn't been any. Did that mean Peter was right about it all?  
  
"Now there are still rules," Peter pointed out but with a wave of his hand and a sip of scotch as though dismissing the importance. "The tags, obviously. And when I mentioned I was new in town, the bartender was quick to inform me there's no touching because they could lose their liquor license - they lost a bar like that last year. But it's nothing like Chicago - or New York, they arrest people by the cart-full there."  
  
And just like that, the warmth and security Blaine was starting to feel turned back to an icy block in his stomach. "Is it bad in New York?" he asked, managing but only barely to keep his voice even by keeping it quiet, tense just below the surface. "Do they really arrest people?"  
  
He didn't  _mean_  "people," of course, but saying the name out loud in the same sentence as 'arrest'-  
  
Kurt had been so certain they would be safe there. He had sworn up and down that things would be safe because it was a big city on the coast, and that was what Rachel's father's...whatever-he-was had told him. He hadn't been able to stop talking about the things they would do and the places they would see when they lived in a place that was safer than Ohio, in a place that didn't arrest homosexuals and splash their photographs across the newspaper pages to embarrass and condemn them-  
  
Peter nodded, lips together in a firm, grave line. "One of my flatmates in England had lived there during college. He said it was barbaric, the way police harassed the population. More like something Stalin would do than anything that should happen in a country founded on principles of freedom and equality. But then, so was slavery, wasn't it?" he added mirthlessly. "There was this ridiculous law about clothing having to be menswear, and the police would count the garments- I don't remember precisely, but it sounded like the most ludicrous thing I'd ever heard. At least here they can fight back, tongue firmly planted in cheek."  
  
Blaine knew that somewhere in all of that should have been a consolation. After all, he was safe - they both were, while sitting at a table in a public bar while men in gowns and wigs danced onstage, but-...but  _he_  wasn't.  
  
Kurt had always been so sure of himself, so willing to be eccentric no matter the consequences- he had to wear a uniform at Dalton, of course, but whenever they had off time or when he had come to visit Kurt in Lima, he'd had such interesting jackets and strange shirts and vests with odd patterns...and that had been what he'd been able to find in Ohio with nothing but a few mail order catalogs and the local mall. Imagining what he could create in New York, with all the designers and fabric stores...and what those things might look like to a police officer who didn't know what a mens Edwardian jacket looked like-  
  
He swallowed hard, picturing Kurt's defiant stare through prison bars-  
  
"I'm sure there's somewhere safe," Peter offered sincerely. He reached over to take his hand encouragingly but paused, palm hesitating over the back of Blaine's hand. He pulled it back and set it on the table instead, lightly nudging the side of Blaine's thumb in a supportive gesture the best he could. "Every city has one. They're just underground. Not literally, like the bar in Berlin was back in the 20s, but only for people in the know. I'm sure he's found somewhere safe."  
  
Blaine wished he could be so sure, but he remembered Kurt too well. The last thing Kurt cared about sometimes was safety, especially when someone tried to tell him not to be so proud of who he was. Kurt would go out of his way to prove that he could go somewhere - he had wanted to go stand side-by-side with Mercedes when they integrated McKinley, for crying out loud, that wasn't the sort of thing that a person did if they were comfortable hiding. Blaine certainly wouldn't have wanted to wade into the racial firestorm, even though he was so proud of the people who did...just like he would never have picked "Somewhere" to sing as a duet with another boy in front of an auditorium full of people. It wasn't that Kurt necessarily wanted to push the envelope, he just...didn't mind that he did and refused to smooth himself over. And the police-  
  
Well. Blaine doubted they liked that much.  
  
"There was a bar underground?" he asked instead, trying to distract himself.  
  
Peter's eyes lit up at Blaine's question, and he nodded as he leaned forward, engaged. "It was - down in essentially an old wine cellar, with arched doorways and low ceilings, multiple rooms full of young men who-"  
  
Blaine tried to pay attention and enjoy the fantasy Peter was clearly reveling in, but he couldn't help but be distracted by the drag queen who stepped onstage next. Tall and waif-like, with long thin arms and a neck that could have been graceful but instead looked awkward, he wore a slinky evening gown ìn midnight blue that just emphasized his lack of natural curves. He was heavily maquillaged, foundation appearing to almost sag under its own weight, blush lines obvious even from this far back in so little light. Nothing about the presentation was pretty, not the way the group of drag queens doing Betty Everett had been, not even in the same way as the first number he had seen, though Blaine guessed maybe it was due to age - he looked older than the others. Maybe the thick pancake was covering more years of weathering than the others had lived yet. Maybe he was just more tired.  
  
A familiar piano vamp began, and life seemed to fill the tall man at the front of the stage. He drew in a deep breath, and as he let it out it was like flipping a switch - the awkwardness didn't merely melt away, it  _vanished_  in an instant. His face animated, eyes engaging so clearly and intensely that Blaine found himself unable to notice the oddly heavy makeup or poor blending. The crowd came to life then, too - stopped their conversations or at least put them on hold, even though they had never stopped chattering and enjoying their friends' company for the other performances.   
  
"Oh- yes. Watch this one," Peter said, interrupting his own story, and Blaine glanced over at him - as though he wouldn't have now that his interest was piqued by the surprising, sudden [stage presence](http://youtu.be/FKCnHWas3HQ).   
  
 _When you're alone and life is making you lonely  
You can always go-  
Downtown_  
  
The man's octave was incongruous against the gown, too low for the feminine imagine he was trying to convey, but the presence more than made up for it. Blaine guessed he shouldn't have been surprised - Kurt's voice had always seemed more captivating and shocking coming from the boy. His mouth, ringed in crimson lipstick, moved exaggeratedly as he sang, but instead of looking ridiculous it seemed almost enthusiastic, like he couldn't control himself fully because he was so into the song.   
  
 _When you've got worries  
All the noise and the hurry  
Seems to help, I know-  
Downtown_  
  
Blaine froze as Peter leaned over and whispered against his ear, breath hot over his cheek, "She's meant to be one of the leaders to replace Jose, who was this groundbreaking performer they lost last year when one of the bars closed. He's off now being a chef, and everyone wants to be the new it-girl. I think her makeup needs work, but she certainly something worth watching, don't you think?" He sat back, and Blaine glainced over at him questioningly, trying to gather his thoughts from where they had scattered at the low voice so intimately near to him. Peter simply smiled and tipped his drink in Blaine's direction, as though saying 'you know I'm right, my boy,' before taking a quick swig and setting the empty glass back on the table.  
  
"Are there a lot of them?" Blaine asked. At least five that he had seen, but were these the only ones in the entire city, or-  
  
Peter laughed. "Not remotely. Some don't perform very often, some just walk around when they want to be someone else for awhile...Halloween up here was incredible."  
  
"You came up here then?" Blaine asked, surprised. How had he not known? Where had he been while Peter had been here? When Peter nodded, he added, "Why didn't I know?"  
  
He chuckled warmly with a broad, patronizing smile as he replied, "If I had asked you, would you have come?"  
  
Blaine's eyes widened a little, and he managed to sputter, "Maybe, if you told me-"  
  
"You were terrified until an hour ago," Peter pointed out with a fond nudge of his shoulder. "I thought it would be cruel to pull you into the most raucous night of the year when you're still easing into all of this."   
  
There was something kind, maybe even merciful, about the thought, and Blaine found himself unsure what to say. "Thank you," he offered stiffly.  
  
 _Just listen to the music of the traffic in the city  
Linger on the sidewalk where the neon signs are pretty  
How can you lose?  
The lights are much brighter there  
You can forget all your troubles, forget all your cares  
So go downtown_  
  
The sound swelled around him as the other patrons joined in on the word "downtown," much to the delight of the drag queen, who blew the room a kiss as he continued.   
  
 _Things will be great when you're  
Downtown  
No finer place for sure  
Downtown  
Everything's waiting for you  
Downtown, downtown_  
  
Blaine looked around in surprise, watching the crowd more than he was watching the performance. He had seen people sing before - albeit not in an outfit quite like that - but he wasn't sure he'd seen an audience like this. As he glanced from table to table, he still couldn't put his finger on why they felt so... _different_. Sure, they weren't his usual crowd, they weren't his age - most of them were quite a bit older, though some were only a few years older than the other students in his department. And he didn't think he'd ever had an audience sing back at him except maybe - okay, probably - at a party when the whole crowd of music students was drunk and merrily singing backup...but neither of those were  _that_  strange of an occurrance.  
  
But an entire bar of homosexuals singing along with a man in a sequinned gown was something new entirely.  
  
 _Don't hang around and let your problems surround you  
There are movie shows-  
Downtown  
Maybe you know some little places to go to   
Where they never close:  
Downtown_  
  
A large group of people like that- like  _him_  - was strange enough to think of, let alone to see. He'd seen more than one in his life, of course, and he'd seen plenty as a child, back when his father knew he was young enough to be taught what not to be but too young to be truly corrupted. There had been a couple desperate young men who had even shown up at the house late at night because they were in the midst of a horrible medical crisis, which Blaine was pretty sure meant they had been about to seduce another man before they came enough to their senses to seek help. There had been plenty of miserable souls with which he had become acquainted, these weren't-  
...they weren't miserable at all.  
  
The revelation felt so much larger than the tiny, dark-paneled bar. These men weren't miserable because they weren't sick. They were homosexuals, but they didn't hate themselves for it and spend every day and night trying desperately to rid themselves of their urges. They didn't drink bottle after bottle of vodka and scotch and rum to bury their symptoms deep enough to get through the day and find a wife. They sat at a table with their friends and watched people sing their hearts out while wearing glamourous clothes and tongue-in-cheek tags. They sang and chattered and sipped a single beer all night, and they were  _happy.  
  
Just listen to the rhythm of the gentle bossa nova  
You'll be dancing with them too before the night is over  
Happy again_  
  
He wasn't even sure he remembered what that felt like anymore, happiness. It mostly just seemed like everything he  _wasn't_ ; being able to sleep and feel right, not constantly feeling afraid or regretful or...or  _wrong_. It was lightness and being able to be excited about things even when he wasn't singing, it was-...god, it was everything he wanted. What he wanted more than anything was to be able to just feel that way.  
  
To feel the way these men did. These men who had the same urges as he did, who his father would say were just as sick as he was...they were enjoying themselves as much as Peter was. He had thought that his companion was an oddity - for many reasons, but for his attitude in particular, for his easiness, his willingness to just be himself and be happy even as people stared at him and noticed him for things...but these men all looked perfectly contented with themselves.  
  
They were happy. They were safe. And they weren't alone.  
  
 _The lights are much brighter there  
You can forget all your troubles, forget all your cares  
So go downtown  
Where all the lights are bright  
Downtown  
Waiting for you tonight  
Downtown  
You're gonna be all right now  
Downtown, downtown, downtown_  
  
He had never believed he would see something like this. Who could have imagined it?   
  
...Except Kurt, of course.  
  
Kurt would love this, Blaine thought, fighting the urge to beam as he imagined Kurt's smug expression at having been right all these years. With the men just being themselves with friends...he would have a dozen other dress designs in his head, Blaine knew, and more options for the 'I am a boy' signs - each more clever than the last, because that was the sort of boy Kurt had been. He would feel so at home - not just here, but at the other places, surely. Peter had said there were restaurants all down the street, bars, places that once didn't want homosexuals around but now let them in droves.   
  
Kurt might have been wrong about New York, especially with what Peter had said about the clothing laws and the police harassment, but here...here he could have everything he'd sworn he would have. Everything Kurt had thought  _they_  would have.  
  
And they could be happy.  
  
Blaine imagined it, sitting beside him at the table, with Peter and maybe other friends of theirs, enjoying the show. And Kurt would know all of the performers because he would have made their dresses, and they would all be talking about the upcoming soiree at their small apartment, and-  
  
...And he had to get Kurt back.  
  
 _And you might find somebody kind to help and understand you_  
Someone who is just like you and needs a gentle hand to guide them along  
So maybe I'll see you there  
We can forget all our troubles, forget all our cares   
So go  
Downtown  
Things will be great when you're  
Downtown  
Don't wait a minute more  
Downtown  
Everything's waiting for you!


	12. Chapter 12

The call came late on Thursday as Blaine was in the midst of studying for his Fundamentals of Education final. Without shifting the textbook off his lap, he reached over to turn down the volume on the record player and slip the receiver off the cradle in two smooth motions. He assumed it was a Mendicant who wanted advice for a final of his own - as the only one who had completed his undergraduate degree, he had helped a few study for their midterms with apparently a pretty high success rate, and with exams beginning in a matter of days it wouldn't be a surprise if one of the guys wanted to run something by him in a moment of panic. It was all just part of being a leader-  
  
"Blaine- good. You're home." Peter's voice held a distinct false cheer on the other end of the line.  
  
"I am," Blaine began cautiously, though the statement was self-evident, but the last thing he had time for was an evening of philosophical discussions about the nature of homosexuality - or an excursion up to the city. As fun as it had been, both that night and when they had gone back over Thanksgiving, he had slacked off a little bit in the subject all term and didn't really have time to burn. "But I'm in the middle of studying. Can it wait? I'm done with this one on Tuesday then have a couple days we can-"  
  
"Ah, sadly it won't keep that long," Peter replied. He sounded distracted, uneasy, and Blaine was getting a bad feeling about the call the longer it went on. "I need you to pick up Janie's car and come get me. I tried her first, but she's out - probably at the library, like most of campus right now, and I would wait but her roommate hates me and isn't very good about giving her messages even from the people she doesn't despise. You have a key for my place, don't you? Her key is hanging beside my door, she'll know to ask me first when her car is gone and with any luck we'll be home before too late so she'll barely have time to be concerned-"  
  
"Where are you?" Blaine asked.  
  
"Well- ah. You see, that's a bit of a long story, but suffice it to say that clearly I'm okay or I wouldn't be calling-"  
  
The evasiveness made Blaine more nervous, particularly coming from someone as direct as Peter, and he set down the textbook on his desk as he prompted, "Peter."  
  
"Jail, I'm afraid," he replied, trying to keep a lightness about his voice as though there were nothing more than mild bad news. As Blaine's stomach turned, his friend added, "Up at Berkeley. They've said they'll let us go soon, but the friend-of-a-friend I rode up with left as soon as the police arrived, which means I need a ride back down if I want to get home sometime before the twelfth of never." A pause then, "My time's up. Thank you so much, Blaine, you're fantas-"  
  
And then the line went dead.  
  
* * * * *  
  
Considering he had no idea where he was going, Blaine was surprised how quickly he managed to get up to Berkeley, especially since he had to make two different stops before he could ever leave Palo Alto. He wasn't sure that using a key Peter had given him for emergencies to get a different key to essentially steal the car of a girl he had only formally met twice and seen around the department a handful of times was really the best plan for any rescue mission, but he certainly wasn't about to say  _no_. What kind of person would leave someone to rot in jail like that, especially for-  
  
Blaine swallowed hard as he gripped the wheel. Peter had sworn this wouldn't happen out here. He talked about how safe California was as though homosexuality out here was no more than a dismissable offense, as though technically police  _could_  try to stop them but the entire cadre of men just thumbed their nose at the rules without consequence. And where had that attitude gotten him?  
  
He could image Peter just sitting in a cell, back straight and proud, fedora and suspenders confiscated- or worse, clad in an oversized striped uniform. Maybe he would be safer that way than in his own clothes, Blaine thought ruefully; he couldn't imagine someone as eccentric as Peter being very popular in jail. Not the way he dressed and talked - sure, there were a group of girls on campus who thought he was fun, but no one in prison was going to follow around a guy who seemed to think he was someone's grandfather. Blaine didn't claim to be an expert, but he was pretty sure dandies weren't well-regarded in prison.  
  
Maybe there were others in there with him, Blaine hoped as he swallowed hard. There had certainly been people in the background while Peter was on the phone, maybe-...if it had been a raid, there had to be others in there like them, right? If he was lucky-  
  
Hard to think of a group of men being arrested for that type of crime as being  _lucky_ , but Blaine supposed it was better than the alternative. At least he wouldn't be alone, and if he was with others he would be harder to target...wouldn't he?   
  
From the sudden increase in police cars, Blaine assumed he was getting close, and after circling only twice he found the parking lot. The building loomed larger than life in the darkness, a handful of bright spotlights illuminating the front walk in a harsh glow - probably to deter people from thinking they could escape, Blaine thought bleakly as he tried to figure out what to do now. Was he supposed to go inside? Did he need to bail Peter out- he didn't have any bail money on him, just a few bucks left over from lunch, and Peter hadn't told him to bring any cash. Was that the sort of thing he was supposed to know?  
  
And was walking into a police establishment going to leave him open to arrest? What if they asked him if he was homosexual? Could they arrest him for that? He tried to remember what Peter had said about the laws - though that didn't really seem like the most reliable source right now, all things considered. Alcohol was okay here but not on the East Coast? Was that any help? If he was just walking into a building, not actually engaging in anything  _deviant_  or lewd, surely they couldn't arrest him for that - could they?  
  
He saw several people about his age - men and women - milling around out front, as though waiting for rides, while several uniformed officers watched them with thinly veiled - or in some cases not at all veiled - disgust and disdain. Had they raided a bar full of homosexual women, too? Were there such things? He knew the women existed, but did they have bars- he supposed they might, it made sense they would want companionship just as much as he did. He stopped suddenly as he saw Peter leaning against a lamp-post, idly chatting with one of the men beside him. Even in the unflattering light, he didn't look any worse for the wear, and Blaine could feel his heart clench as he studied the young man - fedora intact, hands dug into the pockets of his unbuttoned double-breated overcoat, one wingtip resting back against the plinth casually as though this night were hardly out of the ordinary...  
  
Blaine leaned over to hurriedly roll down the passenger side window, calling out, "Peter!" The man turned quickly at the sound of his own name, face breaking into a broad grin as he saw Blaine in the requisitioned vehicle. "Are you okay?" Peter held up one finger to indicate he would be along in just a moment, then exchanged a few last words with the other gentleman, nodding to indicate he understood or agreed with whatever the reply was, then he strode over to the waiting car.   
  
"Ah, Blaine - I knew I could count on you," Peter smiled as he tugged open the door and slipped inside, rolling up the window as he sank into the seat. "I'm sorry to drag you away from studying."  
  
"Are you okay?" Blaine asked again, the words coming out a bit hurried with concern, and Peter turned to look at him with confusion.  
  
"Of course," he replied, as though it should have been obvious. "They didn't hold us long - at least not those of us who had the foresight to stop at the bank for bail money before coming. I feel bad for the students who got caught up in the whole thing, they may be waiting there for days though I hear the faculty is already working on raising bail for them."  
  
"Faculty?" Blaine asked, confused as he pulled out of the parking lot and tried to find his way back to the highway.  
  
"They don't like this policy any more than the rest of us do. There are rumours from a rather reliable student aide that the faculty plan on meeting tomorrow to officially condemn all of this - I hope they can stand up publicly for what they believe in department lounges, but I do understand university politics get in the way of everything."  
  
"What does any of that have to do with  _anything_?" Blaine asked, growing more confused by the moment as Peter prattled on about something to do with school that he couldn't begin to follow.   
  
Peter stopped, staring over at him, surprised by his suddenly aggravated tone. "It has to do with everything," he replied, clearly not sure what Blaine didn't understand, which only fueled the boy's frustration. It wasn't bad enough he had lost the time studying, and stolen someone's car, and driven almost two hours with no idea where he was going, worrying for his friend the entire time, but now Peter didn't even see the need to explain to him what had happened so they could avoid whatever place in the future - or avoid all the places, Blaine reminded himself, because if one was unsafe they likely all were, to varying degrees, just as he'd believed in the first place.  
  
"What does the faculty have to do with your arrest for homosexuality at one of the bars?" Blaine asked, and Peter's eyes widened for a moment, then he began to chuckle.  
  
"Oh- oh my dear boy, nothing," he laughed, which only made Blaine more frustrated, hands clenching on the wheel. "That wasn't why- It was a protest. At Berkeley, that's why I was over here instead of in the city. It wasn't a raid, it was a protest. No less obnoxious of the police, of course, but that's not  _why_  I was arrested."  
  
"It's not?" Blaine asked, feeling his anxiety ebb away as he glanced over at Peter before turning to the on-ramp.   
  
"No, not at all," he replied, as jovial as ever, which was a little less infuriating now that Blaine could understand why Peter hadn't been quite as traumatized as Blaine expected. "They were trying to limit student speech on-campus - can you imagine? Telling us what we can and can't say and whom we can and can't support on our own campus? A student was arrested last October for it, and after rounds of negotiations the administration stood firm, so the students occupied Sproul Hall." He grinned as he retold the story, clearly no worse for the wear, and added proudly, "The atmosphere was brilliant, Blaine, you should have been there. The protests were so strong, and everyone believed so completely. It was incredible."  
  
"Weren't you arrested?" Blaine pointed out, and Peter waved his hand absently as though that was the last thing on his mind.  
  
"There are worse things, my boy. Living a life full of things you know are wrong, following laws you don't believe in - or worse still, following  _rules_  that should have no authority that you know violate the laws. We have a First Amendment right to protest, and for that the police decided to arrest us all. Even the students - they said they were trespassing. It's their campus, if anyone has a right to be there and say what they believe in, surely it's the students. I mean, can you imagine being on-campus and the administration telling us what we were or weren't allowed to believe in, politically?"  
  
"Aren't they just saying you can't picket on-campus?" Blaine asked, because from what he'd seen on the news that seemed like about the extent of it. "People can think whatever they want, but they can't-"  
  
"There's not meant to be a difference," Peter stated. "That's like saying-" He paused, trying to come up with a fitting analogy, and after a moment said, "Aha. Yes. It's like saying the Mendicants can exist, but cannot sing on-campus. What good is having a musical group if they aren't allowed to perform?"  
  
The idea was deeply unsettling, though Blaine doubted for the same reasons Peter wanted him to feel angered at the prospect. If he didn't have the Mendicants, Blaine had no idea what he would do. Even now, even with Peter as a friend to talk to, there were still so many days he felt like he could just combust if he wasn't able to get all his feelings out, and music was the only way he really knew how to do that. There was something utterly terrifying about the idea of not being permitted to sing-  
  
"We would just have to find somewhere off-campus," Blaine stated resolutely. He would go to every street corner in town, no matter what the weather was, before he would give up his group.  
  
Peter rolled his eyes, clearly not impressed with the response, and replied, "But you shouldn't have to. You're a group of music students, Stanford has brought you to their campus because of your voices and talent. Why should your right to be talented end when your class is over? Aren't you allowed to be incredible singers in your off-time but still in the vicinity of the campus?"  
  
Blaine still wasn't so sure he believed they were equivalent, but he could tell that Peter did - that to Peter, whatever speech they had been exercising was as essential and as fundamental a right as breathing - and he offered a reluctant, "I suppose."  
  
"You suppose," Peter replied, shaking his head. "It's not the sort of thing one supposes, Blaine, it's too vital - an absolute right. It's- well, it's like saying that you can feel like you might be homosexual but you can't ever mention it. You can't acknowledge it to any other person, or go find others like yourself, or be seen drinking together in public, or find a lover. What good does that do, to say everyone is entitled to his existence just as everyone is entitled to his opinion, but they can never be shared with anyone else?"  
  
Blaine was even less sure what to make of that statement, and he shifted in his seat. Was the right to talk to people, to confide in Peter, to go up to a bar like that and feel the energy of the crowd around him... Was any of that a right? Was any of that something a person could be entitled to? He could understand firsthand why it was so important, but did that make any of it something he had the  _right_  to?  
  
And in light of the struggles for rights across the country, was it something he had any right to ask for? He could go to school, he could get a job, he could ride the same bus as any other Mendicant and in any seat he wanted. Was anything beyond that too much to ask for?  
  
But if Peter was right about how inalienable their right to exist was, if he was correct that they should absolutely be able to talk to one another, to congregate, to enjoy each other, to...find a- well, a  _lover_...did that mean being arrested in a raid was like being arrested at a protest? Was Peter really saying it was something to be proud of? Because Blaine was pretty sure that would never, ever be the case, and even the suggestion made him nervous.  
  
"You should come to the next one - you'd understand all this so much more once you could see it. Once you could feel the energy of thousands of people coming together to demand that the people in charge do what's right instead of what keeps the most power for themselves. It's incredible, Blaine, seeing so many people who understand the same things you do." Peter was positively glowing in the passenger seat, and Blaine couldn't help but wonder how precisely someone could be so excited after spending half the night in jail. He could appreciate why someone - especially someone as passionate about things as Peter was - would revel in the idea of seeing others who were just as engaged as he was. He understood that much on a small scale, because each time he had found just one other person who was homosexual it had felt like the entire world opened up. But anything that led to arrest didn't really seem like a good idea - or like anyone's idea of a good time. And yet the young man beamed, even as he leaned against the window and started to drift off, fedora slipping down over his brow as he dozed, exhausted from the events of the day.  
  
Blaine was just glad he was okay.  
  
* * * * *  
  
The drop-off area at San Francisco Airport was busy with cabs as Peter made his way through, attempting to navigate the loops with their pedestrians striding easily along, dressed in suits and carrying suitcases that were no doubt stuffed with presents for family members back home. Blaine swallowed and shifted uneasily in his seat, staring out the window. His tie felt uncharacteristically tight, even though he had tied it the same as every other morning; he doubted it actually had anything to do with the band of silk around his neck and far more to do with the ticket clutched between his fingers.  
  
"Does here look good?" Peter asked, and Blaine tried to force a faint smile even as he shrugged. Peter pulled Janie's car over to the curb and put it in park, but neither of them moved to retrieve Blaine's suitcase from the trunk. After a moment of uncomfortable silence, he offered, "You'll be okay, my boy. You're strong, and it's barely a week."  
  
Blaine wasn't so sure that he could ever be fine when he was about to board an airliner to go back to his parents' house. And he certainly wasn't sure that a week there could ever be classified as an insignificant amount of time. An evening there sounded like an eternity, especially an evening of their friends, a dinner with too many courses and too many words with absolutely no meaning. He wanted to tell Peter to turn the car around and drive back to campus as fast as he could go, to barricade himself inside his apartment with a stack of new records.  
  
But he couldn't. His parents were expecting him, and after the several notes that had been sent his way over the course of the semester, each one holding a larger guilt trip than the last, he supposed he really did have to use the ticket.   
  
Maybe the week would go quickly. The previous week had flown by, as he had tried to ignore the impending trip...maybe he would be lucky.  
  
Maybe he could fall into old patterns of not needing to talk about things so badly. He had managed holidays with his parents plenty of times before and lived to tell about it. He would be fine...right?  
  
He forced a faint smile for Peter, appreciative of the words of encouragement, and started to reach for the door handle when he felt the boy's broad, strong hand encircle his left hand. It felt warm, reassuring, but also- something. He wasn't sure he could say what, but it made him suddenly feel more nervous. "Just-" Peter hesitated, then finally managed, "Don't go back."  
  
Blaine's eyes narrowed a little as he asked, "Didn't you just tell me it would be fine?"  
  
"Not like that. I meant...don't go backwards. Don't run away from who you are just because you know it's what they want. Remember how miserable you were when I met you?" Blaine felt sheepish as he remembered Peter literally having to carry him home, and it must have shown on his face because Peter laughed softly. "Clearly you do, then. Don't go back to being that person, Blaine. You've come too far to fall back now." He felt a squeeze and glanced down at the hand clasping his over the gearshift; when he looked up, Peter's mask was gone - his green eyes deeply worried, wide lips pressed tightly together, eyebrows knitted-  
  
God. He was  _scared_  for him. Peter was genuinely afraid he would go back to the old ways of thinking in the course of the week.  
  
Blaine swallowed and squeezed his hand back, trying to reassure him even though he didn't feel at all confident in his ability to stay strong as his father described his most recent cases and reminded Blaine of all the reasons his life could easily go wrong because of how- how  _different_  he was. "It's only a week," he repeated, and Peter's lips flicked into a momentary smile. "I'll see you right back here in seven days."  
  
"I'll be waiting," Peter replied. He gave another quick squeeze, then pulled his hand away. "Do you- ah. Do you need help with your bag?"  
  
"No, thank you. It's not too heavy," Blaine replied. The suitcase was full, but it contained only stacks of neatly-folded jackets, shirts, and trousers, with a brown pair of wingtips to go with his navy jacket, and a cache of long ties - no bowties would meet with his father's approval for a formal dinner, even just with his parents. He flashed a faint smile, then emerged from the car, overcoat slung over his arm with a paperback copy of something by Proust he'd never heard of but that Peter had insisted he read tucked into the pocket. It seemed safer than taking home anything by Wilde, anyway. He drew in a deep breath as he opened the trunk and pulled out his luggage, but he flashed a faint smile and managed a small wave for Peter as the boy drove away and headed back to Palo Alto to spend the break holed up in his cozy apartment with its overstuffed library and excess of tea.   
  
It sounded much better than his own plans, and it was only because Blaine knew he could never catch up that he didn't try to chase down the car.   
  
He sighed softly to himself, allowing himself one more moment of fearful self-pity before drawing in a deep breath to attempt to steel his nerves. He would need it, he knew that much. He was sure there would be at least two soirees filled with eligible young women from appropriate backgrounds, on top of at least four dinners during which his parents alternated between polite smalltalk, awkward silence, and smalltalk laced with innuendo and disapproval about his choice of school and career.  
  
But he could do this. It would be agonizing, but he had survived the agony plenty of times before...even if it always made him feel like he couldn't breathe.  
  
After checking in at the ticket counter and leaving his bag, he pocketed his claim ticket and wandered toward his gate. His flight wasn't scheduled to board for nearly twenty minutes, and he was too anxious to sit around doing nothing for that long. He doubted he could focus much on any book, let alone by an author with so much winding, tangled prose as Proust-  
  
A poster caught his attention as he passed, and he doubled back. Vibrant rectangles overlapped and tilted away from where he stood, aiming toward a tower at the back of the poster. Tiny starbursts gave the impression of glistening lights all over, and beneath the rectangular billboards were small zips of dots, narrow lines curving and weaving in and out like the traffict they were meant to represent. At the top of the poster, the name of the city emblazoned in bold, slanted capitals: NEW YORK.  
  
It was an ad, he knew that, there were similar posters on walls throughout the airport, advertising exotic destinations like India and mundane ones like Chicago, but none of them had captured his attention like this. Where other cities looked historic, full of culture, New York seemed bright, tall, bustling, anonymous...  
  
Exactly the sort of place Kurt would make his home.  
  
Blaine smiled wryly despite the sudden pain. He had seen plenty of movies depicting New York, and of course his favourite musical was set there, but he had never thought about the city that much. Not the way Kurt had - the boy had been planning a life there practically his entire life. Blaine had let himself imagine for a moment here or there, but that had been it.  
  
But the poster made it seem so-... _inviting_  was the wrong word. It looked like the sort of place where people zipped from errand to errand, never stopping for smalltalk with painfully practiced smiles. The sort of place where a person could sing on streetcorners and barely be noticed as he let his entire soul out. The sort of place that felt dangerous but romantic all at the same time-  
  
He could go there.  
  
The thought came to him so suddenly he felt as though it were out of nowhere, despite the poster in front of him. He could fly there tonight - the ad was for TWA, but every airline had a route to New York these days. He could cash in his ticket and buy one for New York instead. It might be too late to retrieve his luggage, but so what? It wasn't full of clothes he particularly wanted back, it was full of clothes his parents found 'right,' and that was reason enough to let his suitcase sit at the airport in Columbus unclaimed. He could buy new clothes in New York - better ones, ones from all those flagship stores...he would call Peter once he got there, but he was sure the young man would understand. And from there he could find Kurt; "Hummel" wasn't a common name in the midwest where most people had German heritage, let alone in New York with its Irish and Jewish and Italian surnames...he would be easy to find, even among so many people. He had been easy to spot in a room full of boys in uniforms, he doubted Kurt could blend in even in the biggest city in America.  
  
It was exactly the sort of thing that a man would do in a movie - go find the girl he loved in a strange city. Kurt would appreciate the romantic gesture, and then-...  
  
...And then what? Blaine wondered. Would he drop out of school and move there? See if he could transfer to a different college? Go back to California and bring Kurt with him? That would be best, he bet; Peter had talked about how unsafe New York was, and San Francisco didn't have raids. He could spend a magical Christmas with Kurt in New York, then take him home and start a life-  
  
An announcement crackled over the public address system, calling all passengers departing for Columbus to begin boarding. He blinked and glanced down at the ticket in his hand. When he looked back at the poster, the fantasy had been broken and he saw only a jumble of brightly-coloured squares that would make it impossible to find anyone. It wasn't even a  _place_ , really - nowhere was composed of tilted rectangles like that, it was just an idea. A fantasy. An advertisement for something that would never really be like that.  
  
Dejected, Blaine hitched his coat further up the crook of his arm and walked over to the gate. The line looked like it could be made up entirely of his father's business associates - rich, well-mannered white collar types on their ways back to families that looked happy but underneath felt miserable. Or felt nothing because of the artificial fog of pills and alcohol that turned them into mechanized specters of what they might have been once. He filed wordlessly behind them upon instruction from the air hostess whose cheery voice was distorted by the address system, feeling as though he was beginning to sink inside himself already.  
  
By the time the flight touched down in Columbus some four hours later, he was beginning to wish he had stopped by the cabin's bar while he'd had the chance. He had been proud of himself for passing up the offers of alcohol given so freely and eagerly by the stewardesses in their short blue skirts, even if he had felt sick inside when one of the girls made eyes at him and he could barely bring himself to smile. But the prospect of time in his father's house -  _days_ , almost a  _week_  - only increased his anxiety as the distance between Blaine and Ohio went from a couple thousand miles, to a few hundred, to a few feet.   
  
The landscape looked foreign to him after so many years away. Dreary grey clouds hung thickly just above the top of the airport, spitting heavy flakes of snow. There wasn't a palm tree in sight - only the empty, lifeless branches of deciduous trees. Where seagulls had dipped and dived in search of trash to pick through for remnants of food only a few hours before, Blaine saw no birds; they had flown south, he reminded himself. It had been so long since he had been able to track the seasons that way. It all looked so barren, so dead - not even dead,  _devoid_. In fact, the only colour he could see as he peered out his window were logos on the other airplanes - blue circles, red letters, a half-dozen depictions of birds.   
  
He couldn't do this. This was ridiculous - there was no good reason for him to be here. His parents asking him to would never be a good enough reason; if it were, then it would be a good enough reason for him to do other things, to stop doing things, to be someone he couldn't bear the thought of being. He should spend the holidays somewhere else. Anywhere else. He could catch a flight from here to anywhere, couldn't he? Back home sounded like a winner, but he would take the first plane out of here.  
  
But he couldn't move. He couldn't venture into the artificial, empty landscape because as soon as he did... Blaine knew that as soon as he walked through the doors into the terminal, he would follow the crowd down to baggage claim, find his suitcase, present his claim ticket, and leave with his parents' driver. He wouldn't have a choice-  
  
"Sir?" The stewardess touched his shoulder gently, and Blaine flinched but tried to cover it with a shaky smile at the wide-eyed brunette who had winked at him earlier. Looking around, he saw that everyone else had left already, and only he and the employees remained on the aircraft.   
  
"Sorry," he offered awkwardly as he stood, grabbing his jacket and slinging it over his arm, reaching back to snag his still-unread Proust from the seatback pocket. "Thank you," he added, though for what he wasn't sure. With leaden feet, he made his way down the aisle toward the door. The first blast of cold air hit him suddenly as he stepped onto the stairs, and it took his breath away as he fumbled to pull on his overcoat; even with the garment in place, it did little to cut the feeling of icy air whipping around him. He shoved his book back into the coat pocket awkwardly and used the pockets to help tug it closed more tightly around himself.  
  
Even after trying to prepare himself, he had forgotten how cold Ohio could be.


	13. Chapter 13

Blaine had to hand it to his parents:  It couldn't be inexpensive or easy to buy an entirely new set of decorations every year.    
  
He had never been entirely sure how they did it, because everything seemed to just  _appear_  one morning.  The house had been devoid of any sign of the holidays when he arrived, but somehow the next day he had come downstairs to find a festive wonderland, with silver-glitter-encrusted garland across the mantle, evergreen-coloured candlesticks in elegant silver holders on the table, and all manner of Christmas foliage: poinsettias on the carved sideboard, holly draped across the banister, and in a foyer a grand pine towered above him, covered in silver and white balls, baubles, and tinsel.   He was used to the way his parents' house went from its usual standard of high-end showiness to an ostentatiously festive setting for the annual party, but so many years away had clouded his memories.  The space already felt far too large for him, now that he was used to dorm rooms and his tiny apartment that was smaller than any bedroom here.  The roaring fire did nothing to quell the drafty quality that had gone unnoticed when he was a child, and the settee in the living room felt too hard as he sat and regarded the tree.     
  
Blaine knew he wasn't an authority on Christmas decorations or anything, but it never looked like this in movies.  Trees came and went, of course, they were dead, but the decorations were meant to be hauled down from attics and garages instead of being purchased anew with every season.  He wondered if there was a box of ornaments he might recognize in one of the storage rooms upstairs.  He smiled faintly to himself and shook his head; nothing in any of those boxes would be recognizable.  None of it meant anything, and none of it had ever been displayed more than a few days - hardly enough to build memories from.       
  
It didn't surprise him anymore, not really - not with the way his mother and her friends were about making sure they didn't wear the same party dresses to functions where people would have seen it before.  It was about making a statement, and just like the Mendicants wouldn't perform the same songs week after week, he guessed...at least to his parents...a new set of garland and fresh candles every Christmas was the least they could do to dress up the house for the annual soiree.  Still, it did nothing to make the enormous house feel any more like home.     
  
He wondered what Peter was doing right now- of course, checking the grandfather clock, he assumed the young man was probably sleeping.  It was only 6 on the West Coast, and while Peter didn't seem to keep any particular hours, Blaine guessed he probably wasn't awake yet; he envied him, curled in a warm and familiar bed, in a home that felt like his own, only a couple hours away from a place that felt like absolute freedom.     
  
Blaine's ears perked up as he heard someone humming, and his eyes widened as he realized it was his mother.  Was she different than he remembered, less trapped and devoid of any emotion?  But as he saw her swirl through the dining room, elegant as ever in her brocade house dress and heeled slippers even as she straightened candlesticks.  Her hair was up under a silk coif, probably already styled for tonight, and her humming flitted from one ubiquitous carol to another - the verse of "Jingle Bells," which she dropped as she moved to inspect sideboard in favour of "It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas."  She clicked through the dining room into the living room, adjusting the garland.     
  
It felt wrong to be sitting only a few feet from his mother and  _not_  say something - not just wrong, but  _impolite_.  "Good morning," he offered, and she looked over at him with something akin to surprise.     
  
"Oh - Blaine. I didn't expect you to join us so soon.  The time difference and everything."     
  
"I turned in early last night," he replied evenly.  He had tried, anyway, even if he hadn't been able to sleep much.     
  
"How was your flight, dear?"     
  
One day, Blaine swore, he would figure out how any person could use a term of endearment while still sounding less-than-dear. He had known plenty of people who did - all his mother's friends, for one - but he couldn't fathom it. Even Peter's clunky, antiquated phrases sounded more fond.  But he knew the rules of this game well.  "It was fine, thank you.  Thank you for the ticket."    
  
"Well, without it, we would never see you - would we?"  Her lips curled up in a fake half-smile, one that was equal parts passive-aggressive and completely empty.  She didn't object to never seeing her son because she missed him; she objected because his presence had gone unnoticed at too many functions.  He had exceeded the polite number of family obligations to skip, nothing more.    
  
Blaine swallowed hard, feeling queasy, and his mother let the conversation drop as she crossed the room to the tree.  The humming began again - "O Christmas Tree" this time - as she swapped a few ornaments to different branches for a more balanced appearance.   "I'll be upstairs if you'd like me to help with anything," he offered, unable to sit there and watch the rote display any longer.  He paused, then added, "What time is everyone arriving?"     
  
"Six," she replied. "The same as every year."     
  
How silly of him to forget, Blaine thought sullenly as he ascended the stairs toward his bedroom.  The only thing that ever changed here were the decorations.     
  
* * * * *   
  
Blaine drew in a deep breath as he stepped in front of the mirror.  His charcoal grey suit was perfectly pressed, one button fastened; his white shirt had been pressed and starched since making the trip across the country so that the collar stood up tightly against his neck.  He fidgeted with his narrow tie – cranberry silk, in the spirit of the season – trying to get the knot to lay perfectly.  There was a bowtie he would rather wear, but he had left it at home so he wouldn’t be tempted.  He was going to have a hard enough time acting properly to please his parents without seeking comfort in a couple narrow loops of forest green silk with a semy of burgundy and cream crescents.  His black wingtips were shined – it helped that he didn’t wear them much in California.  No one out there did.  Not like here, where all men of any status or importance had a pair of shiny black shoes to go with their expensive suits.  Even professors and bankers were less formal in California.  That was part of what made Peter stand out so much.  
   
Well…and the fedoras.  And his old-fashioned suspenders that didn’t look nearly so old-fashioned when stretched across Peter’s broad chest-  
   
Blaine almost choked at the thought, coughing sharply, and he grasped the edge of the sink to steady himself.  Not tonight.  Not  _here_ of all places, where he needed to avoid the topic at all costs.  Not  _anywhere_ , really, because even if he wanted to admit to himself that Peter was not unattractive, his heart belonged to exactly one person, who happened to be even worse to think about tonight.  
   
He grabbed his comb off the edge of the vanity and began the process of managing his hair.  After combing it into a meticulously neat part, he reached over, squeezing a glob of bryl from the tube and spreading it over both sections of his hair with a strong, smooth, well-practiced motion.  He set both hands to work slicking down the right side, where more hair meant more potential for an unruly curl to pop up during dinner, then studied his reflection again.  
   
It was good to know that not all of his skills and tricks had fallen completely out of practice; for how miserable and nervous and stiff he felt, he didn’t see any of it on his face.  Under normal circumstances, he would try to remind himself not to be too animated or upbeat as both were the wrong attitude for a party like this, but he sincerely doubted that either would be a problem.  Not with how little he wanted to be here anyway.  
   
With a final smooth-down of his hair, Blaine rinsed his hands and emerged from the bathroom, drawing a deep breath to settle his nerves as he descended the staircase into the foyer.  The first floor was abuzz with activity as servers scuttled from the living room to the kitchen and back again, making sure there were plenty of hors d’oeuvres ready for the soon-to-arrive guests.  An album of Christmas music played just loudly enough to contribute to a festive atmosphere, and Blaine wandered over to pick up the record sleeve.  Over a painting of a living room hearth in lots of deep crimson tones, white script read “Christmas Jazz.”  
   
It wasn’t, Blaine thought sadly to himself as he set the album sleeve back where he’d found it.  It was too easy to find a melody, and none of it felt like anything except what it was:  the sort of wordless music a person played during a party where everyone was exactly the same.  A way to be educated and cultured without resorting to classical orchestral pieces.  It felt like being trapped in a room with dozens of people who could never know your secrets, not at all like something beautiful waiting to be discovered.  
   
Even jazz here sounded devoid of emotion.  
   
“Blaine.”  He froze as he heard his father behind him.  He subconsciously stood taller and straighter, shoulders stiff and even, back straight, neck held high.  He kept his arms locked at his sides, almost afraid to move.  
   
What if he carried himself differently now?  What if he moved differently – or talked differently?  Four years away – not just away, but at college where he was one of the most formal people he knew because he was well-mannered – had left him incredibly out-of-practice.  He was certainly rusty enough to be reprimanded for  _something_.  And how much had Peter influenced him?  What if he sounded formal enough to border on sounding like a sissy?  Because it was a fine line, one Peter walked carefully, but he wasn’t nearly so skilled yet.  What if his lack of attention in the way he walked or moved meant he minced now?  His father looked for people like him for a living.  He had identified Kurt’s supposed malady in under an hour.  What if his father took one look at him and  _knew_?  
   
Blaine turned slowly to face him, keeping his face as expressionless as possible to prevent any nervousness from showing itself.  “Good evening, father,” he managed, watching carefully for a reaction.    
   
He found none.  “Come help greet our guests.  They’re starting to arrive.”  
   
Blaine wasn’t sure why he expected something a little more personal the first time seeing one another after four years.  Maybe an acknowledgment, however hollow, that it was good to have him home.  A question about school, even one couched passive-aggressively among a bevy of reasons his parents disapproved of both his college and his field.   _Something_.  he knew he had no right to expect it, but he couldn’t’ help but feel a little hurt when his father turned to lead the way to greet guests Blaine barely knew instead of even asking how he had been for almost half a decade.  He followed anyway; that was his job here.  So he smiled politely and shook the hand of a friend of his father’s colleague, his lovely wife, and his college-aged daughter who was apparently doing well at Vassar.  He had no idea why they thought that was important to mention, but Blaine simply smiled, congratulated her, and moved on to the next.  
   
He couldn’t put his finger on what was different about this round of introductions.  Form as far back as he could remember, he had been expected to greet guests and thank them for coming.  Maybe it was just so many years away, but it felt much more like an introduction of an heir to the family business than merely introducing a son who was rarely home.  To say his father was bragging about his schooling would be an overstatement, but the fact that he was getting his Masters was front and center – though, Blaine noted, his father was careful to never say in what subject.  It certainly seemed to impress the string of families he was being introduced – or, in many cases, reintroduced – to.  
   
Well, maybe “impress” was a misstatement.  He had no idea whether any of them found his education laudable or were merely extending the appropriate polite congratulations and approval.  It was nearly impossible to tell with his parents’ friends.  Blaine tended to assume that every response was social grace and politeness; anything more would require a level of emotional engagement that he doubted they were capable of.  
   
There was a look – a flicker, where just for a moment the fathers of daughters weighed him as a prospective son-in-law against the husband they really wanted for their little girl.  A Masters was impressive, but not as impressive as a degree in medicine or law.  The ambiguity of subject probably worked against him, too – no subject, no school…if it were an impressive degree being pursued somewhere like Yale, his father would say so, and everyone in that room knew it.  
   
Perhaps that was why there were so few sons around.  Inviting primarily friends with daughters would certainly be less competition for his father’s honour.  
   
“Joshua – thank you for coming,’ his father said as warmly as Blaine had ever heard him speak to anyone.  
   
“Thank you for having us.  You remember my wife, Katherine?”  
   
‘Yes, of course.  Lovely to see you again.”  
   
Blaine was surprised how quickly the script came back to him.  He hadn’t heard it in four years, yet somehow twenty minutes in this world was starting to sound completely normal and as natural as a wholly stilted interaction could be.  He knew it shouldn’t surprise him at all considering how easily the training came back when he was first showing up at Peter’s unannounced, but it felt strange to know exactly what would be said before it was uttered.  Next Katherine would smile winningly and say what a lovely home they had.  
   
“Thank you so much.  Everything looks wonderful; you have a lovely home.’  
   
“All my wife’s doing,” Blaine’s father replied, and Blaine realized that to a stranger unfamiliar with this type of platitude, it might appear for a moment as though his father felt something akin to genuine fondness for the woman to whom he had been married more than a quarter century.  “You remember my son, Blaine.”  
   
“Yes, of course.”  Joshua held out his hand, which Blaine shook; his grip was firm and effusively distant.  “What are you doing these days, Blaine?”  
   
Since the question had been addressed to him for once, Blaine replied evenly, “I just finished up my first semester of my Masters coursework.”  He wanted to say something about it – something real.  How much he loved what he was studying.  How much he looked forward to opening the world of music to kids who thought they didn’t have an outlet.  Where he was going to school and how much he loved it there and couldn’t wait to return.  But he knew better.  
   
“Excellent.  Congratulations.  Michael just finished his degree in business at Princeton.  He got an offer with a firm in New York-“  
   
Blaine didn’t hear whatever explanation came next; he was too busy noticing his father’s expression.  At a mention of his father’s alma mater and a degree in business and what Blaine was sure was a lucrative job, his father’s face tightened for a moment, smile widening as though pained, a flicker in his eyes as he compared the accomplishments of this man’s absent son to those of his own offspring…and found Blaine wanting.  
   
Blaine didn’t just want to be back in California.  He wanted to be anywhere but here.  Instead, he listened with a plastered-on smile and empty words of congratulations as Joshua talked about the girl Michael was engaged to.  Apparently she was a great cook and a lovely hostess.  
   
What was he supposed to do when he was dragged and guilted back for the holidays next year – or in five years, or ten?  What would happen when he passed the acceptable age for one to be considered studious and just become a bachelor, then a  _”bachelor”_?  that was certainly a euphemism enough of his father’s patients used.  So was the excuse that they hadn’t found the right girl yet.  His father knew every code phrase, every red flag…Blaine couldn’t just slip under the radar like some sons could.  
   
What was he supposed to do?  Tell him?  Hope his bachelor story held up awhile?  Get a fake girlfriend like Kurt had had Rachel?  Was it fair to do that to a girl who could have a real boyfriend who liked her in the way a boy was supposed to like his girlfriend?  
   
Get a real girlfriend?  
   
The thought made him queasy, but his smile didn’t waver; it tightened instead as he politely excused himself to the drink cart.  A few waiters had circulated with champagne and wine and martinis, but he needed something more than that.  He needed something that would ground him – solid glass pressing against his whole hand instead of clutching at a delicate stem.  Warmth filling him to combat the block of ice lodging itself in his stomach.  
   
No more feeling.  
   
He fixed himself a scotch and bright it to his lips, eyes landing on his mother over the rim of the glass.  She stood among a group of women who were at all these functions, a glass in her hand that held at least her third drink of the day, smiling and laughing mechanically.  She looked more than merely robotic, detached from everything around her.  Was that why, Blaine wondered, lowering his glass.  Was that why he couldn’t’ remember the last time his mother had seemed like an actual  _person_? – those birds at Disneyland were more lifelike than she was.  Was numbness what she craved?  Was that why- because though he had used alcohol to be able to feel things, he guessed a part of it had been about numbing the parts he thought were wrong.  Was she hiding a secret like his?  Or was this much alcohol just the only way to not mind feeling so- so damned  _trapped_  in here?  
   
Would a drink stop him from feeling like he was suffocating on his own inability to draw in enough oxygen?  Would it help anything?  Or would it just turn him into her?  
   
He remembered spending the Christmas of his last couple years in Ohio absolutely terrified he would become his mother – that his father would find out his secret and put him on the same sorts of numbing tranquilizers as this mother…and yet here he was-  He set the glass down, fingers still itching for the comfort of a familiar activity that he associated so strongly with relief.  He needed it.  He  _needed_ -  
   
He needed to get out of here.  
   
He could find keys and go somewhere, he realized, almost gasping in relief as he felt like he could inhale oxygen again.  He could slip off somewhere, if he could only find-  
   
“Blaine,” his mother called quietly as she noticed him standing by the drinks.  “Come here a moment, dear, there’s someone I want you to meet.”  
   
It took everything in Blaine not to take the scotch with him as he crossed to the other side of the couch where his mother and her friends stood.  “Good evening,” he greeted with the best smile he could manage.  
  
“Darling, this is Linda,” his mother stated, touching his forearm as she indicated a young woman standing among the cadre of middle-aged housewives. She was tall with classic features, her auburn hair pulled back into an elegant updo. Her red wool dress hugged her curves perfectly, the sleeves adding class and demurring enough to make up or the act that the hemline had crept to several inches above her knees. Her smile tugged just slightly to one side but was bright and eager. “You two have a lot in common. You should talk – why don't you show Linda the tree?” It was a clumsier attempt at a ruse from his mother than most, but Blaine simply tried not to let his smile droop as he extended his arm to Linda, as if to say 'right this way.' He led her to the base of the tree, glancing up at the branches upon branches of matching ornaments.  
  
“It's nice to meet you,” he offered, not sure what else to say to this girl he didn't know.  
  
“Likewise. Judging from the way your mother called you over as soon as I mentioned it, I'm assuming you like music?”  
  
That got Blaine's attention. His eyes widened, and he turned to look at her. “Yes. Do you-”  
  
She nodded, brown eyes shining brightly. “I love it.”  
  
His smile broadened, softening into something more genuine. That was promising. “Me too. It's what I'm studying.” It was so much more than that, but he could never put it into words. On the other hand, that did make it a useful test: anyone who could understand how much music meant and the impossibility of describing something as vital as life itself might be able to understand him.  
  
Linda nodded. “Do you sing in a group, too? Or juts solos, like a rock and roll star?”  
  
Blaine laughed softly, starting to relax a little. “An acapella group – the Mendicants. I also write most of their arrangements.”  
  
“Acapella groups look so tough. It's tricky enough getting my whole choir to sing together at church, and we have a piano to help us.”  
  
Something about her statement made him vaguely uncomfortable again, but in absence of knowing why he answered, “It takes a lot of practice and work. But I enjoy it. They're great boys to spend time with, too.” He missed them already, with the past few weeks off while everyone studied for finals... “What are you studying?” he asked politely.  
  
“French literature. I'm a junior at Bryn Mawr.”  
  
“What do you want to do when you graduate? Go live there?” Blaine had never been to France, nor did he know anyone who had – though maybe Peter? He knew his friend had traveled through Europe, but he hadn't heard stories specifically about France. Frenchmen, yes, but not Paris. But from what he had seen in movies, it looked sophisticated and incredibly romantic. He would love to-  
  
She laughed, shaking her head. “Of course not. It's so hard to be away from my family to go to school in Pennsylvania. I miss my parents terribly, especially my mother – don't you? Or is it different for boys?”  
  
Blaine couldn't speak for men as a whole, but for  _him_...There were times California didn't feel far enough away, like when plane tickets arrived at his door, but for the most part it felt like a world away – and that was exactly what he wanted. Whatever the furthest point away from all of  _this_  was, was where he wanted to be. “It may be,” he offered, not wanting to be impolite but unable to fathom wanting to live closer to all of this.  
  
“I'll move back after graduation. College has been wonderful, and the campus is beautiful. I've met amazing girls there, but...here is such a wonderful place to raise a family. I want my children to be as happy as I've been.”  
  
The most off-putting thing, Blaine realized, was that it wasn't politeness talking. Linda wasn't just following an unwritten rule that commanded people to speak favourably about where they had grown up. S he genuinely felt every word of it. S he believed with her whole heart that this life was the best place for a person. If he could have run away gracefully, he would have; instead, he had to stand there and listen to a girl he didn't know talk about what she considered all the best things in life, all of which made him feel like he was suffocating.  
  
He bet she thought this music was jazz, he thought sullenly. She probably wouldn't understand the way a musical could feel like time travel or change a persons entire outlook. She claimed to like music, but clearly she didn't  _need_  it like he did.  
  
That wasn't fair to say, he admonished himself. He didn't know that for sure. After all, Kurt had wanted this life, too, and he certainly understood the power of a song.  
  
No; that had been different.  _Kurt_  had been different. Kurt had wanted a mother who looked like Grace Kelly and a father who knew what pate was. To a boy from a blue-collar family in a small town, that was what all of this looked like. Blaine had no doubt that the world Kurt built for himself felt nothing like this. He wouldn't feel like a fish on dry land there, even if he were surrounded by men in suits while waiters passed by with trays of canapes and flutes of champagne. Things would  _mean_  something there, because things meant something to Kurt. It would all be  _honest_ , like the brave boy whose truth had scared him. And music wouldn't just plink along in the background; it would be  _everything_. if anyone would create the life he needed, the life he craved like water in the Sahara, it would be Kurt.  
  
He was only two hours away, Blaine realized suddenly. This could be his chance – Kurt was sure to be home for the holidays, he could drive to Lima and see him. Apologize to him for everything and start over, only better this time because he wasn't scared.   
  
Blaine almost screamed as his mother announced dinner. If there were one time he could not sneak off unnoticed, it was at a five-course meal with placecards and an equal number of people and chairs. Everything in him was ready to snap, and the knowledge that there was somewhere worth escaping  _to_  within driving distance only made the tension more unbearable. He yearned to slip out the kitchen door and take a car – any car – and speed toward the boy whose heart he had wrongly broken five years before.  
  
Instead, he filed in with the rest of the guests. If his polite company mask slipped, no one noticed; if anyone did notice, they were polite enough company not to say anything about it.  
  
* * * * *   
  
By the time Blaine arrived at the Lima city limits, he was starting to think he might have lost his mind.  
  
Dinner had lasted for what felt like longer than he had been in college, even though he was pretty sure it had only been a few hours. His face ached from trying to paste on a smile while eating. His back felt like it would never un-tense enough to sit comfortably again. His eyes burned still from the smoke of the after-dinner cigars. And everything else just  _hurt_.  
  
He had to see Kurt. He just had to. He needed to explain, to tell him why he could believe all the things now that he couldn't believe at 18. He needed to apologize for all the ways he had hurt the boy he had loved so strongly – all the ways he hadn't understood until so much later. He had to see him, to touch him; the idea o even being physically near him was almost enough to make him fee like he could breathe again, for the first time in days.  
  
Though Blaine had only been to Lima once, he remembered bits of it so vividly that he found his way without much difficulty; aside from doubling back to catch turns as he missed them in the dark twice, he thought he did pretty well. He pulled into the driveway, parking behind an old pick-up truck. Blaine smiled faintly, sure that belonged to Mr. Hummel. He had only met the man that one weekend and seen him in passing at Dalton a couple times, but he admired the way Kurt and his father interacted. They were  _close_ in a way Blaine couldn't imagine being with his family. Kurt actually missed his father when he was at Dalton. Which meant surely he was the type of son who came home for holidays.  
  
Despite the late hour, the front window was illuminated by a tree strung with bright lights. It was a tiny bit lopsided beneath all those multi-coloured bulbs, and none of the ornaments matched one another. He could pick out a few made from popsicle sticks, a few doily-like folded crafts, ceramic figurines, and a bevy of glass balls in every hue. There was nothing designed about that tree, nothing that made it a show piece, and Blaine was sure none of the decorations inside matched any part of the tree, but it felt so  _perfect_. Even staring at it from his car as snow drifted down, he felt warm just looking at it. He could imagine the whole family putting it up – Kurt, his father, his stepmother, and that really tall stepbrother, singing carols and drinking cocoa as they hung each child-hand-crafted ornament on a branch with the utmost care. This was family.  _This_  was what he wanted.  
  
And the best part was, he knew without a doubt that Kurt wanted it, too. Because his fantasies hadn't just been about a beautiful apartment filled with important people; they had been about a beautiful apartment filled with friends, and then quiet evenings with a record player, a cozy fire, a copy of Vogue, and the man he loved. They could have all that now. Kurt had been wrong about the location, but Blaine had been wrong about all of it – so now he could show the boy everything. A place they could be together, be safe, be so happy together-  
  
...If Kurt was here.  
  
The thought occurred to Blaine suddenly. What if Kurt hadn't come back for Christmas despite loving his family? What if he had reasons to study in New York, like it cost too much to come back, or he didn't want to abandon friends who were trying to avoid their families, or-...a boyfriend? What if he had come all the way here only to find out that Kurt was still in New York?  
  
...He could go there, he realized, hope springing again for a moment. He could take the car and drive straight through the night, be in New York in the morning. Or, if he were worried about his parents and the car, he could drive back to their house, get his things, take a cab to the airport and fly to New York. That would be best, he concluded with a nod. He wouldn't get in trouble for stealing a car, and he would have clothes other than this suit when he got there.  
  
Assuming eh could find Kurt once he got there.  
  
His father had to know, right? Blaine was absolutely certain Mr. Hummel knew where to find Kurt. But would he give that information out to a boy he had met once, who showed up on the doorstep at midnight the day before Christmas? Wouldn't it be kind of strange to just show up like that? And all of that assumed Mr. Hummel would remember him. He really didn't want to make Kurt's father suspicious, either, and risk him finding out  _why_  he wanted to see Kurt so badly. He had already hurt Kurt enough times without adding that type of betrayal on top of it all.  
  
But even I he could go up to the door and convince Mr. Hummel – who remembered him enough to believe a word he said – that it was completely reasonable for a Christmastime drive down memory lane to end at the house of a boy he hadn't seen in  _half a decade_ , and none of that scared Mr. Hummel enough to stop him from giving the nervous kid on the stoop his son's address in a huge city 13 hours away...and even if he could afford a plane ticket or find a bus leaving over the holiday,  _then_  what? Take Kurt away from his dream city by promising there was a place that would be better and safer? Why would Kurt have any reason to believe that? To believe  _him_? Unless New York was as awful as Peter made it sound, which made his heart ache just to think about it. Maybe, if New York was good enough that Kurt didn't want to leave, Blaine could move out there instead. He didn't now what he would do about school, but maybe it didn't matter. He didn't know if he even needed his degree, especially in New York, and if he did...there were other schools. Maybe he could even transfer to a program at Columbia, where he should have gone in the first place. The Mendicants would be fine without him, and he and Kurt could-  
  
Assuming Kurt would even speak to him.  
  
Blaine winced as the blunt reality began to intrude on his fantasy: Kurt may very well want nothing to do with him. After how things had ended...after the way he had just abandoned a boy who was completely in love with him, who had trusted him and made plans for them...Kurt probably wouldn't trust him ever again. And the worst part, Blaine knew, was that he couldn't even resent Kurt for that. Not with what he had done, the way he had one it...maybe if he could have talked to Kurt and explained it all then ultimately decided he needed to focus on college without the distraction of a long-distance boyfriend, that would have been different. He doubted Kurt could have begrudged him problems with timing. If he had been able to do things that way, maybe they could have a chance now. But he hadn't been able to do things the way he should. He could  _now_ , maybe, but he couldn't when it mattered, so he had sprung it on the unsuspecting, trusting, incredible boy who had never done anything wrong but try to love him while he was still too busy hating himself.  
  
So he could walk up to that front door and hope Kurt was home for the holiday. And when the boy he had loved to the point of abject terror turned out to be in New York, living his own life, Blaine could try to convince a man who barely knew him to give him the address were he could find Kurt in New York all without raising suspicions about the nature of their “friendship,” and then he could take the car back to his parents' house and catch a cab and fly all night and find his way downtown to Kurt's apartment-...but what good did  _any_  of that do him if, when he found Kurt, the boy rightly slammed the door in his face?  
  
Kurt had absolutely no reason to trust him again. Blaine had no right to even ask.  
  
Swallowing hard around the lump in his throat, Blaine eased the car into reverse and backed out of the driveway, driving slowly back toward his parents' house.


	14. Chapter 14

Even though there was nothing ostensibly different about the last day in Ohio, to Blaine every mundane event felt momentous, as though he could feel the minutes ticking away with each passing instance of unwelcome, formalized banality. As he ate lunch alone at the deserted table, he felt almost giddy at the knowledge that, at this time tomorrow, eh would be eating a lovely – albeit prepackaged – meal in the company of a hundred strangers in far less silence. His afternoon lounging on the settee, reading Proust and wishing he could understand any of it, made him smile as he realized he would see the book’s owner in only 24 hours. He could ask Peter what all of this meant then, because he was pretty sure the sentence he had just read had begun at least six pages ago, and he had gotten lost somewhere in the middle of it.  
  
Peter had been right, Blaine smiled to himself, a tiny bit of pride starting to creep over him. He had made it. He had been okay. Well…maybe  _okay_  was too strong of a word. He had been miserable for six out of the seven days, his mood improving only as he neared the end of his trip. Three of those days he had only emerged from his room for dinner, where getting dressed had felt like an insurmountable obstacle. But he had made it. He hadn’t accepted dates – or more – from any girls. He hadn’t gotten drunk and tried to enjoy blissful, nostalgic numbness in the touch of some daughter of a family friend. He had neither combusted nor broken into an inappropriate musical number during any of the unbearably stuffy family meals, and that included Christmas dinner and its eight courses of alternating small-talk and silence. He had thought for sure he wouldn’t survive it, but he  _had_.  
  
He wouldn’t’ have a few months ago. A few months ago he would either be ready to crawl into his father’s office or engaged to the first “acceptable” girl he saw. Or drunker than his mother. Now…he could be okay. He never wanted to come back, no, but even a week with his parents hadn’t been enough to convince him that there was something wrong with him again. As silly as it sounded, he was really proud of that.  
  
And he hoped Peter would be, too. He had been really worried at the airport, and Blaine couldn’t wait to show him his progress. Maybe they could even go up to the city to celebrate, since they would be more than halfway there anyway.  
  
At exactly half past five, Blaine closed the book he still didn’t really understand and went upstairs, content in the knowledge that this would be the last time for the foreseeable future that he would need to shower twice a day – once in the morning and once before a meal with exactly two other people. Even tying his necktie brought a sense of liberation as he reminded himself that he could switch back to bowties practically as soon as he landed in California. And no more sportcoats or wingtips…he smiled broadly as he slicked his hair to the side and pressed it into place.  
  
The oppressive stillness of the dining room felt more tolerable with the knowledge that he was almost gone from it all, so much so that the question, “How was work, dear?” didn’t even register; it wasn’t until Blaine heard his father begin to answer that the old queasiness hit him.  
  
“A difficult case came in this morning. A college boy who, thanks to the destructive influences of the big city, has been getting more and more severe. His parents were practically beside themselves when he returned home last week.”  
  
Blaine froze, caught off-guard by the sudden jolt of panic at the mere mention of someone like him. It had been months since he had felt so frozen at the idea that-…that what, exactly? That he was sick? Or that someone would  _know_  he was sick?  
  
Except he wasn’t. He wasn’t sick at all, that was the thing. He was complicated. He was different, which to people like his parents might be a fate worse than death, but to him was something interesting. He was jazz in a world of Bach, that was all – and he would rather be an unconventional genre of music than silence any day.  
  
But his father didn’t understand that, and so that poor boy-  
  
Blaine wondered if he knew him. Maybe it was a boy Blaine had seen before – at Dalton, maybe, or in town, or…at the drive-in? were there boys his age there? He didn’t think so, he only remembered men older than him and Kurt-  
  
 _Kurt_.   
  
Oh no- he swallowed hard at the thought of the beautiful, strong, proud boy sitting cross-legged in his father’s office, refusing to deny who he was, flat-out stating that there was nothing wrong with him…his father would torture the poor boy until he almost broke, Blaine knew, and if Kurt didn’t break, he would-  
  
College, his father had said, Blaine reminded himself, trying to calm his racing heart; not “college-aged,” the boy was actually enrolled. Or he had been enrolled, anyway. Who knew what would become of him now, such a “severe and difficult case.” He certainly would be prohibited from returning to the city. He probably loved it there, finding others like himself…Blaine wondered if the boy had found safety there. If police were awful it was one thing, but if the boy had found genuine happiness and safety only to have it ripped away by a gentleman whose entire life was built on hiding and conforming-  
  
“How can you do that to him?” Blaine blurted out before he could stop himself.  
  
There was silence for a moment as both adults turned to stare at him, stunned by his outburst – or at least as stunned as the two of them could be. His father’s eyes narrowed, and as he spoke his words were neatly clipped, his tone low and forced even. “What was that?”  
  
Blaine swallowed, his father’s glare enough to make him nervous, but he couldn’t turn back now. “He was happy at college in the city, wherever he was, and you’re going to isolate him and tell him how sick he is. But there’s nothing wrong with him. How can you take these men and make them miserable? Isn’t that against what medicine is meant to do? What about the Hypocratic Oath?”  
  
“Enough, dear.” He could hear his mother chastise him quietly, but he couldn’t stop himself. Not after so many years of feeling so  _awful_ , of wanting so badly to be anything except what he was. And it was all their fault – all  _his_  fault, and the people like him. If his father could just let people be – or at least let the men who were happy with themselves remain that way…  
  
He could have had so many things if his father hadn’t spent so many years talking about men who were “sick.” He could have believed Kurt and those studies the boy tried to show him. He-…he could have let Kurt love him. He could have let himself believe in a future, in happiness, in something other than a life of miserable marriage or psychiatric wards. He could have been happy all these years instead of drowning in a sea of liquor and women he wished desperately he could love. “You’re doing more harm to them than you can even imagine,” he stated, getting angry now. “You don’t even-“  
  
“Blaine. Enough.”  
  
He didn’t want to stop speaking, to back down, but he couldn’t overcome the authority in his father’s voice. He fell silent, staring sullenly at his half-eaten bowl of soup, unable to say or do anything but still seething.  
  
“I see college has influenced you for the worse, too."  
  
For a moment, Blaine wanted to say it. He could, he knew, just blurt out all the ways college had changed him. He could list every bit of good Peter had done to undo a decade’s worth of torment inflicted by the man at the head of the table. It would stun his father, Blaine was sure, and show him-…show him what, exactly? That homosexuals weren’t sick? That sick people could come from good families and appear normal? That he was his own man and wouldn’t play by their rules anymore? He didn’t know if it would do any good, but he would certainly feel better to say it-  
  
…right up until they cancelled his ticket home and kept him here, under the care of one of his father’s colleagues, to prevent him from being surrounded by such destructive influences in California.  
  
He liked to think they couldn’t do that, but he knew better. They could keep him here in a heartbeat. If his father could turn his mother into a robot, he was sure the man wouldn’t hesitate to do the same to him –e specially after an outburst at the dinner table. If he wanted to get out of here tomorrow, he needed to keep his mouth shut, even as much as he itched to say something.  
  
The silence continued through the main course, both adults unwilling to bring up such an unfortunate outburst again and Blaine unable to say anything else for fear of what they might do to him. By the time the roast beef was cleared, he couldn’t’ take any more and gathered the napkin from his lap as he stated, “If you’ll excuse me, I’ll skip dessert tonight. I have a lot of packing to do.” It was a lie, of course; he had been repacking all day, too excited by the prospect of going home to stop himself. Still, it was far more polite than telling his parents he could no longer even pretend to bear their company. Neither of them replied or so much as looked at him, and he took their silence as tacit permission.   
  
Blaine started out of the room and had almost reached the threshold of the dining room when he heard his father speak. “Blaine.’ He turned, surprised. His father’s voice was even as he asked, “Which do you think a leaper would rather have: missionaries to tell them they don’t look so bad, or a salve one could rub on his skin to cure him and stop his contagious symptoms? One is kindness; the other, a cure.”  
  
“But they’re not-“ Blaine began to protest, but he was cut off.  
  
“We’ll discuss it tomorrow. Good night.”  
  
And that was the end of that. Frustrated beyond words by it all, Blaine ascended the stairs and closed his door before flopping dejectedly back on his bed.  
  
He would be home tomorrow. Unless his father was able to let his own willful blindness be pierced by his anger at Blaine disrupting dinner…or unless Blaine couldn’t’ bite his tongue when they talked in the morning… he would be home by the time tomorrow. T hen everything could go back to feeling normal by his standards instead of this artificial façade of ‘normality’ he had been stuck in for too long.  
  
* * * * *   
  
He couldn’t sleep.  
  
He tried – oh how he tried – and he knew that the more he slept, the sooner it would seem like he could leave, but he just couldn’t. He couldn’t relax enough to even come close to dreamland, replaying the dinner conversation over and over in his mind.   
  
What had made him snap like that? He had managed to survive dinners with them for decades without reacting like this. Why had this been so much harder than he was used to? He guessed it wasn’t that hard to figure that part out: he had been convinced his father was right before, and now he knew better which made it a lot harder to listen to. Not wanting to hear what horrible fate awaited a person was one thing; not wanting to hear the antiquated, ignorant justifications for making men hate themselves was another.   
  
He hadn’t meant to take it so far, but he  _couldn’t_. He wondered if that had been what made his father introduce his mother to the devastating world of psychotherapy. He remembered something about her screaming and how it made a scene, but he didn’t remember about what – had she finally had enough of the elder Anderson’s straight-faced lies, too? Told him she was sick and tired of him being such an awful person? Because while the amount she drank was questionable, he somehow doubted her objection would be the same as his; he had more in common with his mother than he felt comfortable admitting to, but he doubted they shared that particular secret.   
  
Besides, his father had never treated a homosexual woman that Blaine could recall, so he was sure that wasn’t what his mother had done that was so wrong.  
  
Would he be a zombie by tomorrow night, too? Or would he just be taken straight to a hospital to be shocked until it felt like his brain was frying like an egg?   
  
Blaine swallowed hard, finally giving up on sleep. After what felt like an eternity pacing his room quietly and staring at pages of his book without seeing even a single word, he crept downstairs at 7:30. He paused on the stair, listening for voices that might indicate his father had brought a colleague to assess him, to take him away and lock him up for some illness they created and thrust upon him, but he heard nothing. Not even the quiet clink of a spoon against a cereal bowl or a sip of coffee – that was strange. His father was always up by now, but as Blaine crept downstairs and peeked into the dining room as subtly as he could, he saw no one. That was strange – had his father slept in? For a man who was generally awake at 6:15 and often out of the house before 8, that would be incredibly strange, even during a slow week like this one. Curious, Blaine padded into the front hall and found his father’s coat and bag gone.  
  
It seemed odd that his father would go out somewhere to bring back someone to help cart him away; it would be much easier to send him to a psychiatric ward if he convinced him to get into the car somehow first. Unless…  
  
…Maybe his father wasn’t plotting to take him away. Maybe he honestly didn’t understand why Blaine had finally exploded at dinner. Blaine stared at the empty spot where the coat should have been, confused. How could his father not even  _suspect_? He treated homosexual men all the time, and even though Blaine was glad to be going home safe and sound, he had to admit it felt…too quiet. Anticlimactic. His mother had had one outburst that, for all he could remember, may not have even been directed at his father, and she hadn’t been the same since. He got a ‘promise’ to talk about it in the morning that never came to fruition?  
  
If his parents were other people, Blaine might have thought that they had finally realized that he was indeed his own man, his own  _person_ , and that they couldn’t control what he believed about the world or the nature of people or illness anymore. But after the way his parents had guilt-tripped him into coming out for Christmas, complete with passive-aggressive letters from his mother and plane tickets sent months in advance, he knew that couldn’t be true, particularly considering the way his mother had spent half the party trying to fix him up with a nice, respectable wife. Which meant, as far as Blaine could tell, one of two things: either his father cared so little about the substance of anything that his son erupting at dinner didn’t even register on his list of things to care about so long as no one outside the immediate family was there to witness such a shameful display; or running away from difficult situations was hereditary.  
  
He waited on the chaise in the living room for a few hours, constantly expecting that at any minute his father would arrive with a colleague to assess the degree and severity of his sickness and cart him off for electroshock and tranquilizers, but the man never returned. Save a quick goodbye from his mother and an “are there any other bags, sir?” from the driver, he might have sworn he didn’t even exist.  
  
* * * * *  
  
By the time Blaine landed in California, he was exhausted. Jet lag was always a bit disorienting, and the lack of a good night’s sleep only made it worse. He hadn’t been able to relax until he had belted himself into his seat on the plane and felt the aircraft taxi down the long asphalt runway before lifting off. He had almost breathed a sigh of relief as he watched Ohio shrink practically to nothingness before disappearing below the clouds. He had made it through the week. That had to count for something.  
  
And, even better, Blaine thought to himself as he trudged up the jetway: he seriously doubted is parents would actively try to get him out there for another holiday any time soon. No doubt he would be made more impressive to his parents and their friends as a theoretical person whose accomplishments could speak for themselves, with appropriate embellishment, instead of being presented to polite society by the boy who felt too deeply to keep quiet. That had to be worth at least some of the exhaustion.  
  
Immediately inside the airport, a small gaggle of people had gathered to greet their loved ones as they arrived. As Blaine scanned the area to figure out the best way to get through, he was surprised to see a familiar fedora bobbing above the crowd. Peter stood at the back edge of the group with a faint, almost shy smile. Blaine beamed as he saw him – it felt so good to be back – and upon seeing his grin, Peter seemed to relax a little.  
  
Wow – he really had been scared that Blaine would regress, hadn’t he?  
  
Blaine made his way over quickly, squeezing past a gentleman greeting his wife and a rich little old lady visiting her grandchildren, almost laughing to himself by the time he finally reached the young man. “I didn’t know you’d be here. I thought I would meet you at the circle near the taxis,” he stated.  
  
“No, I thought- well. It didn’t make any sense to force you to carry your suitcase and overcoat by yourself, now, did it?” Peter sounded more stilted than Blaine was used to, more nervous than he had ever heard him, and that made Blaine uneasy. He clearly hadn’t reversed course during the trip, so he wasn’t sure what could be making his friend so anxious. “Here, let me take that,” he said, reaching for Blaine’s coat. Blaine handed it over, even more perplexed as he noticed the almost flustered look Peter got about him as their arms brushed. He folded the overcoat across his arm, smoothing it gently with his palm, then led the way toward baggage claim. “I see you’re none the worse for wear.”  
  
Even thinking about the past week felt exhausting, now that he was safely back in California, but he managed a faint smile as he replied, “It wasn’t good, and I’m not going back, but I survived.”   
  
“Good. I was worried.”  
  
“I know,” Blaine smiled a little more broadly. There was something nice about having a friend who was concerned about him. It almost felt like enough reason to be okay; the last thing he wanted to do was disappointed Peter, and that had helped him immensely over the vacation.  
  
“I thought you might backslide. It would be understandable, of course, being there with those sorts of people, but I hoped…” Peter hesitated again, and Blaine regarded him carefully out of the corner of his eye as they walked downstairs to collect his suitcase. Peter looked the same as always, in a navy pinstripe vest and wide-legged trousers, but his usual easy confidence wasn’t there. He moved differently, almost fidgeting, his steps conspicuously eager and too fast, his gaze alternating between fixed on Blaine and deliberately wandering elsewhere as though he had been caught looking where he shouldn’t.  
  
“Is everything okay?” Blaine asked, eyebrows lowering in concern.  
  
If he hadn’t been suspicious before, Peter’s awkward forced chuckle would have certainly made him so. “Of course, my dear boy, why do you ask?” his tone was too high, speed too rushed, like a man caught-  
  
What if that was it? What if he had gotten into trouble while Blaine had been away? Maybe there had been a raid, or another protest, or arrests- “What happened while I was gone?” he asked, and Peter’s reply was not comforting.  
  
“Something- I mean. Nothing, you don’t need to worry. Nothing happened, but we- ah. Well.” Peter glanced furtively around them at the passengers waiting to collect bags, then shook his head. “We’ll talk in the car.”  
  
“Peter-"  
  
“Everything’s fine,” he repeated, then a smile crossed his lips as he added, “Everything’s  _lovely_.”  
  
Blaine eyed him curiously, but when Peter didn’t say anything else – just stood there, watching him with a strange-looking grin – he simply retrieved his suitcase and followed Peter to the car.  
  
As soon as they were inside, Peter’s hand found its way to Blaine’s, and the cover of a warm palm after a week without any meaningful contact felt overwhelmingly good – grounding, reassuring…he let out a quiet sigh of relief. When peter looked at him curiously, Blaine tried to pass it off as getting comfortable in his seat, which was laughable because Janie’s car was not especially comfortable. He swallowed, then turned to look at Peter. “What did you want to talk about?”  
  
Peter looked caught off-guard for a moment, though Blaine couldn’t imagine why since they had started this conversation not ten minutes earlier. He drew in a deep breath and began, “I spent a lot of time thinking about you this week, while you were gone. At first it was just because I was worried about you. I knew you would have a rough time in Ohio, and I didn’t want you to go back to that miserable boy I met in September. And the more I thought about you, the clearer it became until-“ he paused, smiling faintly, then asked, “Have you ever had everything change in a second? Like you know how you feel, but then you blink and suddenly your entire world view is different?”  
  
Blaine wasn’t sure at all where this was going, but he didn’t have to think back very far to come up with his answer. “When you played jazz for me,” he replied. There had been a moment where everything went from noise to absolute clarity in less than a measure, and suddenly everything Peter – and Kurt before him – had tried to explain made sense for the first time.   
  
Peter’s face lit up at Blaine’s point of reference, and he offered a nervous smile as he replied, “exactly like that. Only perhaps more…potentially terrifying.” Blaine doubted anything could be more terrifying than what he had thought his life would be before he understood jazz, but he said nothing. Peter licked his lips as he continued. “I knew we were close, of course, and that I wanted you to be happy, but suddenly it was so clear, so obvious, that I couldn’t…” he squeezed Blaine’s hand and drew in a deep breath. “You are incredible, Blaine. You struggled for so long, but you’re passionate and strong, and- and  _handsome._ ” Blaine blushed and looked away, and Peter pulled back quickly, instantly apologetic. “I’m sorry. The last thing I wanted to do was make you uncomfortable. I thought you were ready- I’m sorry, my boy, we can forget…all of this.”  
  
“Wait – ready for what?” Blaine asked, as confused as ever.  
  
“There’s a dance up in San Francisco on New Year’s Eve. A party for homosexuals and a few people who support us. I wanted you to go with me, but don’t worry-“  
  
Blaine blinked. “Is it somewhere safe, like those bars?"   
  
“Yes, but-“  
  
“Then of course I’ll go with you, silly. Last night I was tempted to ask if we could go up there tonight because after the last week it sounded so good to be around people like us. I know I was scared in the beginning, but I trust you. If you say something’s safe, I’ll go.”  
  
“No,” Peter shook his head. “I meant…go as my date.” That stopped Blaine, and he turned slowly, eyes wide and eyebrows high in surprise. “I  _like_  you,” Peter admitted, looking younger and more awkward than Blaine had ever seen him as he let his vulnerabilities shine through his usual bravado. “I didn’t want to say anything if you weren’t ready. I know it’s only been a few months, but you made it through this week, you can make it through anything…” When Blaine didn’t know what to say, Peter shifted in his seat, looking away. He started the ignition, pulling his hand away to shift the car into gear and pull out of the parking lot, not saying a word, cheeks flushed with embarrassment.  
  
Blaine didn’t know what to say. He could tell Peter was embarrassed, but he didn’t know how to-  
  
He hadn’t really done this before. He had had girlfriends, but he had always initiated that, and he couldn’t remember most of it anyway. He and Kurt had danced around mutual flirtation for months before playing a cat-and-mouse game of affection he was too afraid to willingly return. That had ended disastrously. And losing Kurt had been bad, though worse in hindsight. If he lost Peter…  
  
There was only one person in the world he could talk to right now, who understood what he was going through, how he was feeling. What if he agreed to go to this dance and it ended just as badly and he had to run across the country to get away from it.   
  
What if he was just a really awful boyfriend? He was probably the only 23-year-old in the country who had never had a steady; most guys his age were  _married_. He had no idea what to do on a date if it didn’t involve getting really drunk and fooling around.  
  
Oh  _God_ , what if Peter expected- he certainly didn’t know how to do  _that_. Not really. What if he hated it? …he wouldn’t, he knew; not the way he fantasized about it, not judging by the dreams he’d had… not liking it wouldn’t be the problem. And if he no longer had to be viscerally afraid that doing things – and enjoying them – would mean he was now a higher caliber of disease, a more severe case, maybe he could actually enjoy it this time and not run away feeling queasy after every encounter. If he could do any of this at all, which was still a very big “if.”  
  
He just  _really_  didn’t want to ruin the best thing he had in his life. The Mendicants were great, and he loved leading them, but he couldn’t share things with them the same way. Despite everyone on campus knowing who he was, there was only one person he could talk to, and if he ruined this…if he shoved peter away…  
  
But Peter, of all people, would understand, he tried to reassure himself. How many times had he literally tried to run away from the boy only to find him patiently waiting when Blaine finally found the strength to return? Peter knew where he was coming from, he understood how new all of this self-acceptance could feel. Why else would he have known to worry for Blaine during the trip to Ohio. Kurt had never been able to understand that part. Kurt had always just expected him to catch up.  
  
…he still missed him, though. Still wished he could- Blaine didn’t know exactly, but it involved he and Kurt and the future Kurt had envisioned for them both. That probably wasn’t a very good way to start dating someone, was it? To be pining for an ex-boyfriend and wish for the ability to go back in time and fix things?  
  
But he couldn’t fix things. If he thought there was any chance Kurt would want to see him or give him a second chance, he would have leapt at it that night. But after everything they had been through, and after five years during which he assumed Kurt had moved on, it didn’t make any sense to wait around as though one day three months from now, he would decide that Kurt might speak to him again. Maybe it was time to try to close the book on that agonizing chapter of his life and see about moving on himself.  
  
Of all the men in the world, Peter would be a pretty good next step, right? He was kind of amazing, when Blaine thought about it. So strong – uncompromising in his beliefs and his right to be himself in all his fedora-clad glory. And he was patient, and understanding, and so  _kind_ …he would be far more patient with Blaine than any other man anywhere on the planet. He wouldn’t push or pressure until he knew Blaine was ready, but he wouldn’t let him hide behind fear and uncertainty either. And he was almost painfully smart, but not in an obnoxious way like some people at Stanford, and funny too – with that dry wit.  
  
He understood music. He wasn’t  _musical_ , but he understood that part of Blaine’s life so clearly – he had known just how to get through to him when Blaine was sure nothing could, and while their tastes were completely different, there was something that made him giddy about wanting to lie on the floor with Peter and listen to records.  
  
And he was really… _really_  handsome.  
  
Blaine tried not to let himself think about men like that, despite knowing – really knowing, he swore – that it wasn’t unnatural at all. It still felt too dangerous sometimes, like if he started seeing men that way, thinking about their bodies or features, he might not be able to stop. But he couldn’t’ deny that Peter was attractive; he had tried to ignore it since the night they met, but now…  
  
He found himself wondering what those broad lips would feel like on his own. How the warm, strong hand would feel on the small of his back. What that chest would feel like under his fingertips.  
  
Blaine swallowed hard, sitting stiffly in his seat as he glanced over at Peter. The younger man stared straight ahead, hands tightly clenched around the steering wheel and gear shift, jaw tense. Every so often he gave a tiny shake of his head as though giving himself a lecture for being silly enough to admit his feelings like that. Blaine drew in a deep breath, then placed his hand over Peter’s on the gearshift. Peter looked over in surprise, trying to read Blaine’s expression in a series of quick glances away from the road. “I…really appreciate your honesty,” he began, and Peter’s expression fell for a moment before he could cover. “No- I didn’t mean it like that,” Blaine added quickly. “I…don’t know what I’m doing. This is all really new for me, and I  _really_  don’t want to lose you.”  
  
Peter glanced over again in surprise. ‘Why would you lose me?’  
  
“You know how my other attempts at dating and romance have gone."   
  
“That was different – you were afraid then.”  
  
“I’m kind of afraid now,” Blaine pointed out, and Peter laughed softly.  
  
“It’s different. You’re afraid now because this is new. It’s a far cry from being afraid because of who you are, wouldn’t you say?”  
  
“I suppose,” Blaine had to admit.  
  
“I know this is a big step for you, and I wouldn’t suggest it if I didn’t think you were ready. But you won’t lose me either way, Blaine. You mean too much to me to let that happen.”  
  
He sounded so genuinely worried, so sincere and gentle… Blaine nodded slowly, hesitating only a moment before offering nervously, “Okay.”  
  
Peter blinked. “Okay?” he asked, his voice nervous as though he was afraid he had misunderstood Blaine’s reply.  
  
“I don’t know what a boyfriend does when there’s not a girlfriend, but I want to try.”  
  
Peter’s face lit up, grin stretching from ear to ear as he replied, “Well, he starts by coming to the New Years Eve dance with me.”  
  
“Then that’s what I’ll do,” Blaine replied, smiling, and Peter beamed even more brightly. He took his hand off the shift and reached over to squeeze Blaine’s shoulder encouragingly. Even the simple touch felt monumental after the past week – and past hour. Blaine closed his eyes, letting himself enjoy the contact as he settled into his seat for the rest of the drive home.


	15. Chapter 15

Blaine considered his reflection in the mirror for what felt like the hundredth time in the past ten minutes. He had no idea what he was meant to wear to a party like this. When he had asked, Peter had stated that it was "nice but no tuxedos and certainly no tails," but that still left a lot of options that Blaine knew would be met with varying degrees of disapproval by the other guests. He had certainly felt more confident when buying the outfit than he felt staring at the mirror. He liked the suit fine - with its narrow lapel and slim cut that flattered his shape and made him look taller and a bit slimmer than he actually was, he thought it fit him well, and the dark grey colour should be good for all but the most formal pre-tux parties, so he guessed-  
  
What was he doing? Blaine admonished himself as he tried to tie his bowtie for the third time. Its red, white, and grey paisley design was maybe a little Christmasy, but he thought it looked nice anyway - now if he could only get the ends even- He had no idea how to go on a date with a  _man_. This was a mistake. What if he was awful at this? What if he was so hopelessly awkward and awful at this that Peter realized  _he_  had made a mistake in asking Blaine to go with him? What if Peter realized they were much better as friends then as-  
  
...Would that be the worst thing?  
  
Blaine blinked, hands stilling on the silken tie as he thought a moment. Maybe that was the key to tonight. After all, this wasn't the first time they had gotten a little more dressed up and gone somewhere Blaine had never heard of up in the city. And they had certainly spent enough time just being around each other in the past four months for Blaine to feel comfortable when it was just the two of them together. Maybe if he could just think of tonight like any other foray to a friendly nightclub, everything would be fine.  
  
Blaine smiled proudly to himself as he finally tugged the loops of his tie into place. See? It would be perfectly fine. He could do this. He could-  
  
He swallowed hard as he heard a knock on the door. Too late to turn back now, he guessed. He adjusted his tie and collar one last time, drawing in a deep breath to steady his nerves the best he could, then strode to open the door. Peter stood in the hallway, a nervous but sincerely excited grin on his face. His pinstripe suit was neatly tailored, a little less loose than his usual jazz-age fare, nipping in just enough to show his trim waist and emphasize his broad chest and shoulders. He wore a wide red necktie, held stiff against his rounded collar with a gold pin, with a matching band of red grosgrain silk around his black fedora. In one hand, he held a bunch of flowers - mostly red with a few white carnations and roses stuck in, as though the florist had been trying to finish up the holiday stock, but Blaine couldn't help but notice it also matched Peter's ensemble. He doubted it was intentional, but it did make for a nice first visual impression.  
  
"Wow," Peter murmured, grinning. "You look fantastic."  
  
Blaine glanced down, fidgeting with the hem of his sleeve just a bit. "Thanks. I wasn't sure if it was what you had in mind-"  
  
"It's perfect," Peter replied. There was a pause as Peter gazed at him, then seemed to almost interrupt himself as he said, "These are for you." He held out the bouquet, and Blaine took it slowly. He didn't think anyone had ever given him flowers before - and rightly so. That was the sort of thing a boy did for a girl.  
  
But it was really sweet. A nice gesture, anyway, even if it made him even more nervous. This wasn't like every other time they had gone out. This wasn't an evening enjoying each other's company at a bar behind a row of storefronts. This was a date. There was no way around it.  
  
"Thank you," he replied, taking the flowers with a renewed nervousness. "They're beautiful," he added, and Peter's grin grew wider at Blaine's approval. "Let me just put them in water, then we can go." He stepped back and moved over to the sink. He didn't have a vase, but he supposed a pitcher would do for tonight.   
  
"You really do look great," Peter offered again, and when Blaine glanced over in surprise, Peter was gazing at him with a mix of fondness and something else Blaine couldn't pinpoint - something kind of like surprise or wonder. He shifted self-consciously, not used to this kind of attention, and Peter stiffened a little. "I'm sorry, my-...Blaine," he corrected himself, as though concerned his usual term of endearment would be too strong now that they were-...what _were_ they, exactly? Dating? Was it too early to call it that since they hadn't actually been on their first date yet? Boyfriends? "I didn't mean to make you uncomfortable."  
  
"I'm not," Blaine assured him honestly. "It's just...new, that's all. No one's really noticed before." He was concerned that sounded arrogant, as though he knew he was attractive and was waiting for the rest of the world to see it as well, but before he could clarify, Peter grinned and shook his head.  
  
"Of course they did. But they were girls, and you were too drunk to notice them noticing you." The joke at his expense felt like before - before Peter's Christmastime revelation, before the painful trip to Ohio, before he'd had to really contemplate what dating a man would be like, and Blaine was grateful for the return to familiar territory. He grinned, head hanging self-deprecatingly, and Peter laughed warmly. "Believe me, my boy - not all of the Mendicants' fans are there for the music."  
  
Blaine wasn't sure how to take that, replying with an awkward, "Thank you?"  
  
Peter chuckled and grasped his shoulder, broad hand giving a fond squeeze, and Blaine inhaled at the touch. "Come on. We have a long drive, and it would be a shame to spend midnight somewhere on Route 1." Blaine smiled and placed the flowers in the pitcher before grabbing his jacket and keys and following Peter to the car.  
  
* * * * *  
  
Blaine was surprised his nerves didn't get the better of him during the drive. Part of it, he was almost certain, was that this part was familiar. They had driven up to the city together before, both in comfortable silence and engaged in conversational banter; this time, Peter had been kind enough to leave the radio on even though Blaine doubted a countdown of the year's most popular songs was really what the boy who loved jazz and obscure British chanteuses wanted to listen to. Even so, it helped Blaine relax to sing along to the Beatles and Supremes between eager little bursts of conversation. He even caught Peter singing along to "My Guy." It was quiet, almost under his breath like he was either self-conscious or had no idea he was doing more than hum. Either way, Blaine couldn't help but watch him with a smile. He had never heard Peter sing before, and though it clearly wasn't the boy's area of expertise, it was oddly adorable to hear him for the first time this way - casually drifting in and out of lyrics on their way to their first date.   
  
After navigating the crowded streets of San Franciscans on their way to their own parties, they made their way from the car to California Hall. The four-story building loomed over the corner of Polk and Turk, dwarfing the rows of buildings in either direction. Blaine looked up, studying the unusual dormered roof as they waited for the light to change, expecting Peter to tug him across the street when they could walk safely. When it felt like he had been looking up for at least a full minute, he turned to regard Peter curiously. He wasn't very good at dating, but he was pretty sure it wasn't necessary to let someone look idly at architectural features for this long. Peter looked hesitant, like he had just remembered somewhere he needed to be. "Are you okay?" Blaine asked, and the question seemed to shake Peter from inside his head for only a moment before he went back to staring across the street at the awning-covered entrance.  
  
"I was afraid of this," he mumbled, shaking his head.  
  
"Afraid of what?" Blaine asked. He didn't have to look very hard to know they were in the right place; queens like he had seen at the club streamed past toward the hall, towering over him in their heels, dressed to the nines in ballgowns and dresses fit for the most popular singers. Most had slips of paper pinned to their outfits, often under the arm so it was accessible but didn't detract from their spangled gowns. Blaine had to admit that he did find a certain kind of playful audacity like theirs inspiring. Women - actual women, he assumed, based mostly on height and a lack of rhinestones - milled about in groups, some in neat-looking party dresses and others in boxy men’s suits. There were men, too - or, more accurately, men dressed as men. Some wore costumes, some wore masks, others were simply dressed up like he was, but they tended to stand idly more than the queens, as though they were unwilling to acknowledge their surroundings - or, at least, unwilling to acknowledge that they noticed any of the people clustered around them on the street corner. "Did you forget the tickets?"  
  
Peter managed a faint smile and patted his jacket, just over where the interior pocket was, to indicate they were safely inside. "No, it's nothing, my boy, it's-..." he looked over at the entryway again, then sighed. "No use hiding it from you, is there? There are police outside with cameras."  
  
Blaine blinked, peering and rising on his toes to get a better look. "Why are they here?" he asked, not understanding. "It's not illegal to go to a party, no matter who else is there - is it?"  
  
"Not at all," Peter replied. "It's intimidation, my boy, plain and simple - and onerous, and illegal, all but for the fact that very few people can afford to challenge the police. They think if they stand outside and take our picture, people will fear embarrassment and go home. Vile, they are...but it means we have, really, two options."  
  
Blaine swallowed, almost afraid to know what the choices were. He could see policemen in dark uniforms lurking around the small table set up outside, where a middle-aged woman took tickets from the nervous party-goers. With each man or woman or queen who stepped up, she forced a jolly smile, pained, as though she completely understood why so many of the men looked like they wanted to run and hide.  
  
Blaine wasn't sure he could. He wanted to so badly - he still remembered the mugshots of the humiliated men from the drive-in back in Columbus, peering out from the newspaper page with such fear and regret, but...at the same time, Blaine couldn't help but feel more frustrated than scared. He couldn't put his finger on why exactly, but the irritation didn’t subside. "What are they?" he asked cautiously, not taking his eyes off the officers and the glaring bursts of flash from their cameras.  
  
"Well. We can either cross the street, pass at least three cameras held by corrupt, bigoted officers imbued with the full power of the state and then some, risking humiliation...or we can go home and listen to albums. I bought a few new ones while you were in Ohio, I bet you'll like them." He sounded resigned, as though he knew what the night would hold. He didn't like it, clearly, and he was trying to force himself to appear upbeat about it anyway, but he knew.  
  
And he  _should_  be certain about the night's change in plans. There was only one real option; still, Blaine felt compelled to ask, "Which would you do?"  
  
The question caught Peter off-guard. "What?"  
  
"If it were up to you-"  
  
"It's not," Peter assured him quickly, glancing furtively across to the police before putting his hand on Blaine's arm reassuringly. "I want you to be comfortable."  
  
"But if I weren't here-"  
  
"My boy-"  
  
"Peter." The elder sighed and looked at Blaine as he fell silent. "What would you do?"  
  
Peter sighed quietly but replied, "I would go in. I would stay to show them they can't intimidate me. I would stay and fight for my right to go to a party, to ring in the New Year with anyone I want. I would stay to show them they can't do this - and that they won't win."  
  
It didn't surprise him at all that Peter felt that way, not after the protest. Certainly it wasn't that Peter was reckless; he understood the risks and consequences but made a conscious decision that it was worth it.  
  
Was this? Blaine had to wonder what was so special about a New Year’s Eve party that could possibly justify risking humiliation and even future job options. If a school did a background check on him and found an arrest...  
  
But that wasn't the only thing to consider. Was this... _date_? Boyfriend? Friendship? Whatever they would call it - Was what he had with Peter worth going to the party? Blaine didn't know much about dating, and he knew even less about dating a boy, but from what little experience he did have he knew that running was a rotten way to begin a relationship - and a surefire way to end one.  
  
Kurt wouldn't have to stop and think about this, Blaine knew. Kurt would adjust his fashionable jacket and jaunty cap, and with back straight and head held high he would march across the street to hand over his ticket. He would be right there in the middle of all the queens, who strutted and jabbered like wild parrots displaying their bright plumage to taunt the police, protected by the thick maquillage that would render them unrecognizable to anyone who saw them dressed normally. Kurt would have strutted across that street, determined that a few narrow minds wouldn't stop them from having a good time - he was so brave like that.  
  
Peter just stood there patiently, waiting for him to admit he was afraid and wanted to go home. He was, and he did, but maybe...maybe he couldn't afford that anymore. Sure, Peter would be understanding about it. He would be kind. He wouldn't push, just offer a fond, sad smile and escort him back to the car. But the signs would all be there that Blaine wasn't ready. It would be an enormous step back toward Ohio.  
  
He didn't want to do that anymore. He didn't want to run - and maybe, just maybe, the fact that two boys he trusted and admired so much would want him to go inside should be reason enough to believe that things would be okay. His life might not be ruined, even if the police and plenty of others didn't understand him. Even if they  _never_  came to understand him...Peter did. And keeping him had to be worth overcoming a few fears.  
  
Starting now.  
  
The light changed, and Blaine stepped off the curb into the crosswalk. He could do this. He could-  
  
Peter's hand on his wrist tugged him back onto the sidewalk. "What are you doing?"  
  
Doing was one thing; saying it was another, and Blaine drew in a deep breath before replying, "Going to the party."  
  
Peter's eyes widened in surprise for a moment, eyebrows arching up beneath the brim of his hat. He studied Blaine before asking, "Are you sure, my boy? I don't mind, and this isn't the sort of thing you should fall into blindly."  
  
"It's not blindly," Blaine replied. "I know the risks. I still want to go inside."  
  
A brilliant, beaming grin crossed Peter's face for a moment, and Blaine's heart leapt at the look. Peter was proud of him for staying - he had chosen right. He sobered after a few seconds, seeming to think, then removed his hat. While he smoothed his perfectly-parted hair with the fingers of one hand, he placed the fedora atop Blaine's head with the other. Before Blaine could ask why, Peter replied, "Keep your face in the shadow of the brim. Don't duck - then they'll think you're an easy target, you see, because you'll look ashamed - but it will stop them from getting the best picture." Blaine nodded, somewhat reassured despite the nerves quivering in his stomach the longer they stood and planned. Peter grinned and added, "It looks good on you. I'll have to loan you my hats more often." he gave Blaine's shoulder a reassuring pat before stepping into the street. His stride was even, confident, self-assured, and Blaine kept up easily, trying to emulate Peter's strength and calm power despite his own nervousness.

  
The entryway awning was crowded with people; keeping his face as neutral and semi-obscured as possible, he tried to listen without looking like he cared to hear. He couldn't get much - not over the camped-up squawk of the queens, the brusque taunts of the officers as they tried to bait some of the men into a confrontation or being humiliated enough to leave - everything from "Smile, doll-face," sneered at an attractive young man to "Betcha the wife will like these" snarled at a gentleman in his 40s who did his best to scurry away from the cameras unnoticed. Blaine swallowed hard and kept his shoulders back as Peter maneuvered them past a lawyer arguing with a police lieutenant about the rights of private gatherings, up to the ticket table. It took Blaine a minute to notice that Peter's path was far from random; he was trying to keep his own body between the cameras and Blaine. He reached inside his jacket, producing the tickets and a bright smile for the harried, frustrated woman. "Happy New Year."  
  
Blaine wished he could be a fraction as cool under pressure as Peter was. No matter how many flashcubes exploded in his face, Peter didn't flinch or back down. Blaine felt ready to run, to push past the crowd and dash to safety - either inside the Hall or back in the car. By the time the woman took Peter's tickets and directed them inside to the main ballroom, it was all Blaine could do not to bolt, the cloying anxiety about what this would mean for the life threatening to choke him. Peter thanked the ticket-taker and nudged Blaine's arm as he headed for the entrance. Blaine let out a sigh of relief as he felt the squish of plush carpet beneath his shoes as they entered the lobby, reaching up to remove the hat.  
  
"You did it," Peter whispered, his mask of indifference shattering into pure and unadulterated proud. He reached over to squeeze Blaine's shoulder, and Blaine wished he could express how much that meant to him to hear. How incredible it felt to have the boy he liked -  _really_  liked - be proud of him. How desperately he had wanted that for so long- "My dear boy," he added, grin softening into something more lovestruck, adoring, and it made Blaine ache.  
  
Of all the times in his life he had felt like he might well up, this was the one Blaine understood the least. Nothing was wrong; he had made it inside. Peter was with him. Things were fantastic. But everything just felt so enormous all of a sudden, too big for words, probably even too big for a song.  
  
"Come along," Peter urged, holding out his elbow. "Let's go to the ball."  
  
"Are we allowed to-" Blaine began. Even where homosexuals could congregate, they couldn't touch - the bars were strict about enforcing that rule because it was apparently the easiest way to get shut down. With the police just outside, it seemed a bit risky.  
  
"I should say so. Why would they call it a ball if we wouldn't be allowed to dance?" Peter pointed out as they took the stairs toward the ballroom. Blaine supposed that made sense; it would be silly to have a ball without dancing. They wouldn't have a dinner and not serve food, would they? "The one and only advantage to an upbringing like yours is that I'm sure you can dance," he added, grinning.  
  
Blaine shifted a little. "Not with another male," he replied awkwardly. He had no idea how to dance a girl's part, let alone who was supposed to hold what part of the other's body - where would his hands even go? Let alone his feet. How were they meant to decide who would lead, anyway? And what if-  
  
"Don't worry - you're overthinking it. It's not nearly as different as you think," Peter assured him, flashing a grin as they entered the ballroom. Blaine peered around, blinking as his eyes adjusted to the dim lighting provided by wall sconces and two chandeliers turned low. Unlike the bars and nightclubs Peter had taken him to, the atmosphere was split between the very nervous - men whose eyes darted over to the door every few seconds, women who stood practically glued to the wall and avoided eye contact entirely - and the exceedingly comfortable. While there were no overt displays of affection, some of the homosexuals danced with one another - men swaying with arms around each other's waists with lovesick expressions on their faces, looking like the world's oldest teenagers at prom.  
  
Blaine had sworn this couldn't exist. He remembered fighting with Kurt outside their own formal while Rachel and Mercedes attempted small-talk inside with the other Dalton Dates. He had been so indignant, so angry, at Kurt for...for what? For wishing? He remembered laughing at him, chiding and insisting that two boys would never be able to dance together.  
  
And yet here they were.  
  
Peter's hand pressed gently into the small of his back, leading him between two women in their thirties beaming at one another and a cluster of costumed queens. Stopping in a pocket of darkness near the wall, he observed, "Here looks good. What do you think?" Blaine wasn't sure he knew enough about the question to give an answer, so he simply smiled, which made Peter grin. "Outstanding. I'll go get drinks - wait right here." with a quick flash of teeth, Peter wove through the crowd. Blaine lost sight of him quickly, so he settled back a bit to take in the others. The group in the center of the dance floor was a jumble of people of all types, but beyond that they broke down into groups of people who seemed alike, as though couples and individuals sought out only others who resembled themselves to stand in pockets across the room. Women had taken up a section of tables over in the far corner, laughing gaily amongst themselves; queens seemed to spend a lot of time side-eyeing one another from several tiny clusters around the room. The contingent of non-homosexual men and women over near the band surprised Blaine. He had never seen them - or people like them - at any of the bars Peter had taken him to, and he had no idea why respectable people would want to come to such a dangerous and...unorthodox party. Peter had said something about how the organizers were mostly non-homosexual ministers or something like that, so maybe they were part of the hosting group. But mostly his eyes kept returning to the men.  
  
They were more sedate than the groups upstairs, for the most part, and while most of them seemed determined to keep a low profile several were actively socializing instead of looking like they wanted to disappear before anyone could know they were there. Many of them looked-...well. Like him. Like Peter, or any of the boys on campus - or even some of the professors. Most of them were older than he was by at least a decade; that made sense, eh guessed, since this wasn't really a party that would appeal to most college students. Some were dressed up, some wore masquerade masks with feathers and fake jewels, but most wore suits that looked like what any respectable gentleman with an office downtown might wear to work.   
  
Because, he realized suddenly, many of them probably  _were_. Most of the men in this room probably had completely normal jobs - and he bet plenty of the women did, too. He rolled his eyes at himself because it sounded so silly: Of course people had professions and earned a living during the week. Homosexuals who didn't consider themselves sick enough to take up residence in a sanitarium had to live  _somewhere_. They went to work, they had jobs where people listened to them and trusted them and probably even liked them. They had families, or at least boyfriends, and houses and lives, and if the expressions he saw were any indication, they were happy.  
  
A person could have all those things at the same time. _He_ could have-...he could be all those things. He could be the sort of fellow that other boys looked up to, be a leader, be a teacher…and be a homosexual. Because if there was nothing inherently wrong about being one, then why on earth would it have to stand in the way of anything else?  
  
Peter returned with two flutes of champagne. "For celebration only, my boy, then you switch to water," he stated, holding out the flute, but when he saw Blaine's expression, he asked, "Are you okay?"  
  
Blaine wasn't sure how to explain his revelation of what should have been the most obvious fact in the world, but he could only answer the question as posed. He smiled, chest and cheeks aching from the magnitude, as he replied, "Absolutely."  
  
Peter smiled and handed him the champagne flute. "I'm so glad." he paused, then admitted, "I didn't expect you to make it half this far." his tone was light, affected, but Blaine understood what he meant.  
  
"I didn't either." he wasn't about to say how many times he had almost called Peter to cancel. "But I’m glad I did."  
  
Peter rubbed his upper arm, gazing at him intensely with overt fondness. "Good." the look made Blaine swallow hard, fingers gripping tightly around the flute stem. He knew the warm feeling in his torso wasn't a bad thing, and it definitely wasn't a  _new_  feeling. He just wasn't sure it had ever felt good before. Usually it came with nausea and the feeling of being strangled, like he couldn't stop his mind from racing long enough to be able to remember to keep breathing, but this felt... _nice_. It made him nervous, but in a good way - like before a big performance.  
  
"Ten!" came a call from across the room, but Blaine couldn't bring himself to look away, even as the rest of the attendees began to chant the countdown. Blaine tried, he did, but ended up half-heartedly mouthing the numbers as he stared up into his date's pale green eyes. He knew something was supposed to come next, but he didn't know what. He knew he wanted to kiss him - or for Peter to kiss him, but he wasn't sure how to even go about that. He knew he had kissed Kurt, of course, but he had spent so much of that trying not to think about what he was doing that he remembered very little about the mechanics. What if they both tried to lead?  
  
By the time the crowd reached "Two!", Blaine felt Peter's hand move from his upper arm to his shoulder, index finger just brushing against his collar. He drew in a deep breath as a cheer went up from the room and, with a tiny smile tugging at the right corner of Peter's mouth, Peter leaned in and kissed his lips softly. Blaine closed his eyes, not sure what to do beyond enjoy it. It lasted only a moment, then Peter pulled back. Blaine opened his eyes to see the young man stand upright, wearing a self-satisfied smile, then tilt his glass to clink lightly against Blaine's. "Happy New Year, my dear."  
  
Blaine wasn't sure how 'happy' could begin to cover what he was feeling, but he replied in kind before taking a long sip.  
  
Peter set down his flute on the nearest tray, reaching down to take Blaine's hand. "May I have this dance?" he smirked, playing more formal than either of them needed.  
  
Blaine took another sip before placing the rest of his champagne on the tray. "of course you may," he replied as he allowed himself to be led out onto the dance floor. Peter chose a spot for them, then guided Blaine's left hand to his waist before pressing his own right hand gently into the small of Blaine's back. He took Blaine's free hand with a smirk of victory, as if to say "See, my boy? It's not so hard, is it?"  
  
Peter had done this before, clearly; he could lead.  
  
The musicians began to  **[play](http://youtu.be/dtk-mgCYHnYc)** , and Peter began to sway slowly. Blaine was certainly skilled enough to sway in time with another person - he would never have made it as a Warbler if he weren't, but this was different. The way a firm hand pressed him gently closer, the fact that he could feel the rise and fall of Peter's chest against his own with every breath, the scent of the man from this distance...the spice of his cologne and fresh scent of ivory soap on his skin that made it hard to think clearly...  
  
Blaine had danced with someone more times than he cared to count. From the time he was eight there had been ballroom dancing classes with the children of other well-to-do families as an extension of etiquette classes and other forced social rituals that had been nothing but trying to emulate stuffy adults. All the movements had been stiff, forced, unnatural...until he had grown into them by the time the cotillions began. Dalton had helped him avoid a lot of those events as a teenager, but it had never made any more sense to him. Even college, with its much freer forms of dancing that were more of a prelude to sex than anything else, hadn't helped. He knew  _how_ , but it had never felt like this. He had always enjoyed dancing by himself, but as soon as another person got involved...  
  
But this was  _lovely_.  
  
He had to laugh to himself because Peter was the only person - and certainly the only man - he knew who used that particular word. Apparently his date's influence was farther-reaching than he thought.  
  
"What's funny?" Peter asked.  
  
  
"You," Blaine replied, smiling more broadly.  
  
"You're hardly the first to notice, my boy - though you're probably the best-looking," Peter replied, and Blaine looked down at the compliment, pleasantly embarrassed. "Why now?"  
  
Blaine was about to try to explain his thought process and how the word had ended up there - and why it amused him - when the lights suddenly flicked on at full brightness. He blinked, trying to get his bearings as the strings screeched into silence and couples jumped apart, trying desperately to remain unseen in the glare of a dozen new lights. Amid shouts of confusion and frustration, he heard a gruff voice bark, "Party's over, queers! Get outta here."  
  
Blaine froze, disoriented by the jarring end to the evening, unable to move or react or do anything but watch as this safe haven of a ballroom was broken up. Wasn't it bad enough they'd had to brave a police force with cameras and taunts to get into the place, but now that they were here did the officers have to break it up, too? It was barely after midnight, couldn't they have one party of their own? No one was hurting anyone. But the throng of people, so jubilant only moments before, shuffled silently toward the exit, where officers stood on either side of each decorative ballroom door, nightsticks in hand as though ready to baton the first undesirable who stepped out of line.  
  
"Why are you doing this?" called a female voice from across the room. Only Blaine and the police turned to look; everyone else seemed to collectively sight and roll their eyes, as though the question were too ridiculous to merit a response. She was part of the group hosting that he had noticed earlier - one of a dozen women dancing with a man, and she had never looked more out of place than she did as she stood with hands on hips, refusing to leave even as everyone else trudged out in silence.   
  
"We rented the hall, you can't just break up a private party without cause!", called a man who looked a couple years older than Peter from where he stood beside the young woman. "What grounds do you have?"  
  
"Blaine!" Peter hissed as he realized Blaine hadn't moved. "Come along, we'll have dinner." Peter wasn't even going to echo the cries of how unfair this was? Of all the people in the ballroom Blaine would have expected to protest something like this, he would have sworn it would be the gentleman he had picked up from jail during finals, the boy who had spoken so eagerly about the fundamental right of students - of a school he didn't even attend - to speak up and protest on their own campus. Why didn't this count just as highly in the boy's mind? Why wasn't he even trying to say something? "They're not arresting anyone, just clearing the hall," he added, clearly trying to reassure him. Blaine knew that should be reassuring, the word 'arrest' echoing in his head and accompanied by an icy chill in his stomach, but the cold was almost immediately replaced by anger.  
  
He shouldn't have to leave. None of them should have to leave. No one was doing anything wrong, no one was doing anything but dancing and talking, and even the most raucous college party he'd been to hadn't been shut down so summarily. This must be what New York was like all the time, only worse, he realized glumly, and that was when it hit him.  
  
The organizers were shocked enough to be upset. They were as mad as he was about the need to leave a perfectly behaved party for no reason. But none of the other homosexuals were upset because they knew they didn't have the right to be. They knew this was how the night would end, probably before they had even stepped out of their houses. They knew this was what happened any time the police decided they wanted to have a good time. None of his fellow homosexuals were angry about being taunted or photographed or made to leave because this was what they were used to; what use was there in being angry about something that was simply the nature of the world?  
  
And that made him  _furious_.  
  
Why should he have to accept that the police were right? Why should he have to leave the party he and Peter had driven an hour and a half to attend, where they had bought tickets and gotten dressed up? Why should he have to simply live with the fact that the police- that the  _government_  had the right to shut down any party or bar or nightclub or restaurant based solely on the homosexuality of the patrons? It had been awhile since he had taken government, but didn't the Constitution say he had a right to associate with anyone he wanted? Didn't he have a right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness - and didn't that right apply to _everyone_? It didn't say anywhere that those rights were given only to homosexuals; they were  _inalienable_. They belonged to everyone.  
  
Even him. Even the party-goers who were trying to scurry out from under the watchful eye of policemen who were clearly disgusted by their existence. Even the women in pants and jackets being sneered at and leered at in a way that made Blaine uncomfortable even from across the room. Even Peter.  
  
Even the two of them as boyfriends. Everyone.  
  
They had every right to be here that any other person would have. That so many people in the room had been pushed down for so long that they didn't believe that anymore only made Blaine want to stay there even more - made him want to stand up on a chair and shout it at the top of his lungs, made him want to-...to get everyone back in there. There were more of them than there were of the police, he bet they could do  _something_  anyway-  
  
Peter tugged his wrist enough to get him moving forward, tagging along the back of the crowd. "Why aren't you staying?" Blaine hissed.  
  
"Because you're not going to jail tonight," Peter mumbled back.  
  
"But it's not right," he pointed out. "You have to know that."  
  
"Of course I do," Peter whispered, not looking at him. "But-"  
  
"What's that, faggot?" a policeman demanded as they got close enough to the door for him to hear that the two boys dared to speak instead of shuffling out in silence like everyone else.  
  
Peter started to say it was nothing, but Blaine couldn't help himself. "How dare you?" he asked, eyes narrowing as he stared up at the officer. The man had to be at least a full eight inches taller than he was, muscles peeking out under his short-sleeved uniform shirt, eyes full of rage as soon as Blaine opened his mouth to speak. "Is dancing against the law now?"  
  
"Move along, queer," he replied, voice low and warning, almost a growl, but Blaine couldn't stop. He couldn't just leave and let it be okay. He couldn't let these men get away with destroying not just an evening but an entire group's sense of entitlement to basic enjoyment of life.  
  
"You're awful, do you know that? People have the right to go to a party with anyone they want, and I'm pretty sure it's not against the law to touch another person's arm in public, so why-"  
  
"You wanna push me, cocksucker?" he asked, hand moving to the pair of silver cuffs dangling from his belt.  
  
"No - he doesn't," Peter replied. He grasped Blaine's wrist and tugged him away from the police, through the halls and past the stairs and into the entryway of the hotel, trailing the throng of homosexuals all just trying to get out of the disrupted ball without an arrest.  
  
They burst from California Hall into the crisp night. Blaine drew in a deep breath, cool air filling his lungs as he watched the group scatter in both directions on Polk Street, then divide again on Turk. A row of police cars was parked on both sides of the corner, casting red and blue lights across the edifice, the sidewalk, the crowd trying to get away. Two officers tugged the ticket-taker toward the squad car, and Blaine's eyes widened - who would arrest a middle-aged woman for sitting in front of the building? Still, the policemen made no move to charge the crowd, and Peter tugged him left up the street, then right up Eddy and away from the group before the police could change their mind and decide to start thinning the herd by grabbing one homosexual at a time, like a lion chasing zebras on the African savanna.   
  
Blaine lost track of where they were as Peter wove them around corners, and it wasn't until they were practically to Janie's car that he realized they were back where they had begun. "What was that?" Peter asked, breathless, though Blaine couldn't tell whether it was from rushing to get away from law enforcement or from the exhilaration of it all. He couldn't tell whether to be angry or laugh anymore, wanting to pound his fist against the car and burst into giggles all at the same time.  
  
"What?"  
  
"What on earth was _that?_ " Peter asked as he fished out his keys and fumbled to unlock the doors. "You barely agreed to come, I thought for sure when I showed up at your apartment you would hide and pretend you weren't there so you wouldn't have to cancel, and then you backtalked a policeman who wasn't even arresting you yet but could easily have changed his mind?"  
  
Oh God. He _had._ Blaine's eyes widened as he realized what he'd done - he hadn't meant to go quite that far, he just couldn't help it. He hadn't been able to stop himself, it had just _happened._ Because if even people who weren't remotely homosexual could recognize that it was wrong, why couldn't the rest of them? And why couldn't they stand up and fight or try to do something about it? But at the same time...what had he  _done?_  It could have ended in disaster, he could have been on his way to jail right now. Jail. Where they would write up an arrest record that would follow him forever, and probably could have made its way back to his father somehow though he didn't know how exactly-  
  
...But if he could reverse time, he didn't know that he could honestly say he would take it back. Not the way they talked to the people there, not the way they made the perfectly good people there react with so much fear and shame...  
  
"I couldn't help it," he stated. "I couldn't let them just break up a party like that when there was nothing going on."  
  
"Do you know what could have happened?" Peter demanded as he yanked open the door, and Blaine got inside.   
  
"I had to," he replied. "They were so awful, I couldn't just stand there and let them. No one else even thought anything of it, it was like they _expected_ to be treated like dirt. And I couldn't let that happen anymore."  
  
Peter got into the driver's seat, pausing as he stared at Blaine. "You..."  
  
"I can't feel like that anymore," Blaine stated. He didn't want to feel like that anymore, and he didn't know if he could bear it if he had to: ashamed, resigned to whatever scraps of mercy a psychotherapist decided he might be worthy of, treated like he was sick. After all this time, he couldn't go back. He couldn't just accept it. He wanted more. He needed-  
  
He  _deserved_  more. They all did.  
  
Peter jerked the door closed, and in the blink of an eye practically dove across the seat, lips pressing hard and fast against Blaine's. He responded automatically, moving toward the kiss blindly, a soft gasp of surprise escaping as Peter grasped his jaw. He pulled back partway after what felt like an eternity, eyes shining in the shadows cast by the streetlamps. "You stood up," he whispered, white teeth gleaming through the dark as he beamed. Blaine swore he could feel the warm of Peter's hand on his jaw radiating all the way through him, pulsing through his limbs before collecting in his torso where it felt like his heart and lungs were swelling, pushing against his ribs and threatening to burst through his chest. "Oh, my boy," he added, such adoring tenderness making Blaine want to melt and well up all over again. "I am so intensely  _proud_  of you. Of all the crazy decisions you could have made tonight, you chose right."  
  
Blaine didn't know if he had ever ached so completely, or if it had ever felt so overwhelmingly _good._  
  
Peter's hand dragged down to his chin for a moment, cupping his face as the young man studied him, as though trying to make sure he was really okay and had made the decision for the right reasons. He then pulled back the rest of the way, settling back in his seat and placing the key in the ignition, still beaming so broadly that Blaine could see it even when Peter looked straight ahead.   
  
He wasn't sure whether he believed that a single night could foretell the rest of the year; on one hand, he liked to think that there were too many factors in any life for things to remain stagnant over the course of a single calendar year, but on the other hand he had spent the past several New Years Eves completely drunk and trying to paw at some equally-soused girl in the corner of a fraternity party, and that had certainly been indicative of how the rest of the year had gone.  
  
But looking over at his date's proud grin as he turned onto Market Street, Blaine hoped it was true. He couldn't imagine any way he would rather spend the year.


	16. Chapter 16

Blaine stood at the base of the archway, staring at the campus around him. It hadn't been so long since he had been here last; he thought a moment, counting back - two weeks and maybe a couple days since his last final. Could that be right? Surely not, not with how much had happened. Things couldn't possibly change that quickly. How had he been standing in this very spot only a fortnight ago, trying not to think about going to his parents' house so he wouldn't start to panic, and now...  
  
"Blaine!" Peter's voice shook him from his thoughts, and he turned to see the boy-  _his_  boy, he guessed now - heading toward him. His gait was measured but eager, a spring in his wingtips as he strode across the plaza. "I wondered if I might run into you."   
  
Blaine smiled faintly, his expression nothing compared to Peter's hundred-watt grin. He was dressed formally for the first day back, his blue double-breasted suit and blue and green tie bringing out the flecks of light blue in his green eyes, and he-  
  
 _No_ , Blaine scolded himself. He couldn't start thinking about that here. Not because he wasn't allowed to feel things - he knew better than that now, but...he couldn't around people who weren't like them. If he let himself start thinking about the shade of Peter's eyes or the way his smile lit up the entire quad or what his lips felt like when he leaned over to kiss hello the night before-  
  
A sudden fear gripped him as Peter got within arm's reach. Did Peter understand? Did the boy who lived his life so eccentrically with such pride understand that there were still limits and decorum? Surely he had to, Blaine tried to assure himself, but he couldn't be certain. What if Peter didn't realize that what they did within the safe confines of one of their apartments - or even in a dark corner of a ballroom full of fellow homosexuals - wasn't something they could do in public?  
  
That was ridiculous, Blaine thought as he rolled his eyes at his own lunacy. Of course Peter knew. He was eccentric. He was proud. He wasn't  _that_  blind.  
  
Even if it wasn't fair that a party or a bar could be broken up just for touching, let alone kissing, but boys and girls kissed each other chastely hello on campus sometimes. It was a little overly affectionate for public, but it didn't lead to anyone threatening to call the police.  
  
Peter touched his arm, and Blaine stopped breathing for a moment before remembering that was how the young man had greeted him countless times before. He wasn't acting any differently. He understood and had enough of a sense of decorum to not create a state-wide scandal. "Hi," Blaine managed, his smile growing a little. "How's your first day back?"  
  
"Tedious and predictable, I'm afraid," he sighed. "Of course, since it's my penultimate term it's really just a matter of meeting with a handful of advisors to be sure I'm on track to finish on time. How has your day been, my boy?"  
  
Would anyone else hear the term of endearment and know- Blaine shook his head slightly in response to his own question. Peter had called him that for months without anyone finding either of them the least bit suspicious. It was just so strange being outside their protective bubble for the first time in the nine days of their relationship, that was all. He was fine - they both were.  
  
"I'm looking forward to a few of my classes," Blaine replied. "I'm going to meet with the Mendicants in a few minutes to make plans for the next month or two, then I have one more lecture. Are you done for the day?"  
  
Peter nodded. "I was just on my way home. I've seen everyone I need to see and picked up the last few books I've been looking for at the library, and now it's time to bury myself in research. Which is why I'm glad I caught you." He shifted his books to his hip, digging through the stack as he spoke. "A friend of mine sent this down, it arrived this morning." He tugged out a sheet of goldenrod paper by its corner, then handed it to Blaine. "I couldn't believe it. They're never this organized about things like this."  
  
Blaine studied the flyer, eyes wide. In thick black mimeographed letters, the banner across the top read "STOP THE ARRESTS!" Beneath was a sketch of California hall with police cars drawn crudely lining both sides of the corner, followed by detailed drawings of four people. Blaine recognized the ticket-taker immediately, and he swallowed hard. Why would anyone circulate pictures like this except to humiliate the people who were arrested? Who in their right minds would claim they were supporting the people in the pictures while showing it to the world? The police had been taking photographs to embarrass attendees, and at least that Blaine could understand - he loathed it, but he understood what they were trying to do. What could this possibly help?  
  
Or was this another thing they didn't understand because they weren't homosexuals themselves? Like the young woman who had shouted at the police in the ballroom- they didn't understand because they didn't constantly fear showing up in the newspaper and losing everything? He couldn't even fathom that kind of freedom.  
  
"Why did they put pictures?" he asked, blinking. "You would think someone would stop them."  
  
"To show they're not afraid," Peter replied with a shrug. "To bring a human face to the injustice. Like photographs of those villagers in Vietnam whose homes have been destroyed by American pilots. What's more effective: showing an aerial photograph of rubble blending into the jungle, or showing a woman and her child sitting on what used to be their front stoop and is now nothing but a heap of thatch and mud?"  
  
Blaine supposed he did have a point, and he nodded and kept reading. The poster described the events of New Years Eve, complete with the police raid and arrest of four people who had helped organize the ball - apparently the justification they were using had nothing to do with the identity of the patrons but with the obstruction of justice because they had tried to stop the police from entering the party.   
  
At the bottom of the flyer, in larger letters than the story, was a plea:   
  
 **Show the police we will not be harassed!**  
  
There were several dates beneath that - some sort of protest, something about the courthouse in San Francisco - as well as information for how to help with the legal fees, but Blaine couldn't focus on anything but the bold lettering. The audacity of what they were asking for...  
  
Was it really so much? The ability to go to a New Year's Eve party without having it broken up by the police for no legitimate reason- wasn't that something everyone should be able to take for granted?  
  
"Do you know what happens next for them?" Blaine asked, tearing his eyes from the paper to look up at Peter.  
  
Peter gave a half-nod, half-shrug. "A trial at some point. I know they're out on bail."  
  
"You don't know anything else?"  
  
"Law isn't exactly my field, my boy," he pointed out with a playful cuff of his shoulder. "Friends will keep us updated though. There's an informal phone chain for things like this." He paused for a moment, then asked, "What time do you have to meet with your band of singing gentlemen?"  
  
Blaine grinned at the description, then glanced down at his watch. "Five minutes ago," he replied. He hated being late, especially when it would keep the others waiting - plus it was a really bad example for a leader to set-  
  
"I understand," Peter replied. "I'll let you go. But first..." He glanced around at the ambivalent students across the plaza, then dropped his voice as he asked with a knowing smirk, "Do you have any plans for tonight?"  
  
Blaine shook his head slightly. "I know I'll have reading to do, but that's all."  
  
"Want to bring your books over to my place?" he asked with a look that made clear he knew Blaine's answer already. "Research is always more fun when there's company."  
  
The way his gaze was leveled at Blaine, piercing but playful, clearly in control, made Blaine blush just a little and feel as though he was shrugging off a compliment of some kind even though he couldn't pinpoint exactly what praise the boy had offered. "Sure. Around 7?"  
  
"Make it 6:30," Peter suggested. "I had an early lunch, so let's not have dinner too late." He reached forward again to squeeze Blaine's upper arm, eyes bright and intense, and Blaine swallowed hard even as Peter offered, "Now go meet your boys."   
  
It took a surprising fortitude for Blaine to take a step backwards, flash a smile, and turn to walk toward the practice room. He knew the guys were waiting, and he knew he needed to get there quickly, but the closeness and warmth of Peter's touch left him feeling half-dizzy, almost entranced as though Peter were coaxing him out of a basket with a droning flute and he had no choice but to follow.   
  
It wasn't that the feeling was new; it was just new to not want to run away from it as fast as he possibly could. He wasn't really sure how to walk across campus and not rush back toward the boy to spend all afternoon together. He wasn't sure how to stop himself from grinning whenever he thought about spending the evening with Peter, books spread out across the entire living room as the boy he was so fond of tried to pretend he was making headway on his thesis instead of relaxing and listening to whatever music was playing on the turntable.   
  
He knew he should probably tone down his smile, if only because someone was bound to ask why he was so happy, but he couldn't help himself. He couldn't help how fluttery and giddy and  _light_  Peter made him feel...and he didn't have to. There was no reason he should have to stop himself, he thought with a note of pride, walking a little taller as he made his way to the group's usual practice room. There was no reason at all he couldn't enjoy feeling this way.  
  
People could stop him from acting - the police could arrest folks for ridiculous things and shut down bars for minor infractions, but they couldn't stop him from smiling whenever he thought about spending the evening with a boy who really, genuinely liked him.  
  
Blaine trotted down the stairs and strode into the room to find everyone else waiting for him. They sat in a cluster off to the side of the piano, passing something amongst themselves, but before he could ask what was going on and how everyone's break had been, Fitz asked, "Hey, Blaine - you seen this?" He held up a flier on golden paper, and Blaine swore his heart stopped.  
  
How had they gotten that? None of them were the activist types, not like Peter's friends, and they probably didn't even have anyone in common who could have passed along the information. He was sure none of them would know about the arrests from being at the party; for one thing, he would have seen them, and for another they weren't like him anyway. The Mendicants spent far too much time chasing and serenading women for anyone else in the group to be homosexual-  
  
But why were they asking  _him_  about it? Did they know? Did they know he was there? Had he- He swallowed hard as he remembered the photographs snapping as everyone entered the ball. Had the police gotten a good picture of him, even as Peter tried to keep his body between Blaine and the cameras, even with the fedora? Had someone in the group seen them somewhere? He hadn't heard anything about the photographs being in the newspaper, but then he didn't have access to any of the San Francisco papers except if one of Peter's friends mailed him one a week after the fact for some reason...  
  
Blaine paused a moment, thinking. If the guys knew, he doubted their way of telling him would be to show him a flier that was almost innocuous. None of them were looking at him oddly or watching him, and if they knew he was sure there would be more of a reaction.   
  
Swallowing hard, he tried to play the question off as cooly as he could. "What do you mean?" Fitz passed the paper to him, and Blaine was barely able to suppress a sigh of relief as he realized it wasn't the same sheet Peter had shown him earlier. Where the flier had demanded in bold letters that the police observe basic rights, this page didn't look nearly as obtrusive.   
  
He skimmed the typewritten notice but made it only a few sentences before Ted piped up, "Selective Service is giving exams this spring. If you take it and score high, it'll count for a deferment."  
  
"I thought we got deferments automatically as long as we were in school," Blaine replied, confused. He'd been under the impression when he applied to graduate school that, among other benefits, it would keep him out of the draft for at least two years.   
  
"Kind of. They keep guys with good grades deferred but may start drafting guys who don't do as well. But Stanford's a lot harder than some podunk college in the middle of nowhere, right? So they're giving a nationwide test so it's standardized."   
  
"Great, another test," Jerry groaned. "Right before midterms, too."  
  
"It's not mandatory," Blaine pointed out, reading the explanation in front of him. "It sounds like more of an insurance."  
  
"Exactly," Ted confirmed, nodding. "A C here is like an A- in the rest of the state. Take your chances they'll have enough D's and F's across the country and you'll be safe, or take the test and move up the ladder a little. Not a bad option if you aren't joining the Guard or running off to Canada, if you ask me."  
  
"It's not gonna last long enough to matter," Tommy shrugged. "You all get alarmed over this war stuff like it'll still be going on in a couple years."  
  
Blaine wasn't so sure that the concern was exaggerated. Maybe it was just because Tommy was the youngest in the group and had at least 3 years before he would have to worry about being out of school with a few years left before he aged out of the draft, but he was pretty sure this was at least worth considering. If anything it seemed like the war was heating up since the Gulf of Tonkin, and a year later they were definitely seeing a lot of news stories that looked pretty gruesome. He didn't want to have to think about being sent over there, and if he could manage to stay in school until he was considered too old to be drafted...  
  
His grades were good, but there were probably a lot of guys going to college and graduate school to avoid being drafted, so maybe it was a good idea to take the test. It couldn't hurt anyway.   
  
He held up the flier and asked, "Does anyone need this back?"  
  
"Go ahead," Fitz replied with a wave of his hand, and Blaine folded the sheet to tuck it into his bag to read over later.  
  
"Should we start?" Blaine asked, and the guys rearranged their chairs without protest, forming a ring to begin the rehearsal. "It's good to see all of you again," he began, smiling; with the exception of the days he had spent in Ohio, wishing for anything that would bring him closer to home, he hadn't realized just how much he had missed the group of boys sitting around the room with him. "We did a lot of great things last quarter, and I can't wait to get started on some new songs." He paused, then transitioned, "But first..." He wasn't sure how he should bring up the idea, but as he glanced around the circle and saw the eager looks on his fellow Mendicants' faces, he decided to forge ahead. "There's a concert coming up in March. I know a lot of you have performances in it, since so many of us are in the Music Department," he added and saw several heads nodding in acknowledgement, "but I thought it would be really neat if we - the Mendicants - performed. Small groups are allowed, I asked my advisor this morning, and it would give us a chance to show the school we aren't just boys who sing in dorms or the arches. You guys are  _really_  talented, and I think we should show that off."  
  
"So we're your Masters project?" Jerry smirked, and that stopped Blaine. He hadn't thought of it like that, and he wasn't sure he was comfortable with that idea. They were a team. He loved leading them, he really enjoyed arranging music for them and thinking about whose voice would suit which parts, but he never wanted them to be about  _him_. Identifying the Mendicants as something he was doing to show off his degree progress, however informally, rather than as a group he was honoured to be part of, felt vain. He was their leader, yes, but he didn't want to send the message that he thought they were his followers or backup singers.  
  
"I wouldn't say  _that_ ," he began uncomfortably. He looked around at the circle of- what had Peter called them? Singing gentlemen? - and tried to judge their reactions to Jerry's description. Most grinned, nudging and sharing their own jokes back and forth, which of course made Jerry smirk widely at the success of his own joke. But Ted simply shook his head, rolling his eyes, his irritated expression one that had made a frequent appearance the previous year. Blaine still wasn't sure he understood the bad blood between Ted and the Mendicants' founder, Hank, but he knew at least part of it was over song choice because Ted has looked sullen every time a new song was announced.   
  
Was he becoming that kind of leader? Was that even such a bad thing, considering how much success Hank had had in forming the group out of nothing?   
  
"Oh, sure you would," Fitz grinned. "They could announce us as 'Blaine and the Crickets."  
  
"Blaine's Blainets," Kevin tossed out.  
  
"Blaine and the Vandellas," suggested Tommy, and that brought the teasing to a halt in a flurry of eye-rolling.  
  
Blaine forced himself not to ask what was so much more ridiculous about Tommy's suggestion than Fitz's or Kevin's, his gaze returning instead to Ted, whose expression had gone from sour to bored and ready to work. "C'mon, guys, let's get started," he urged. "Or we won't have anything to perform on our first Thursday back." Surely enough, the fear of not having the opportunity to impress the girls on-campus was enough of a deterrent for the boys to buckle down and pay attention, and the rigors of a good rehearsal were enough to hold Blaine's attention rather than dwelling on whether he was really the next Herman...or Martha.  
  
* * * * *  
  
Blaine had to admit, there was something about Peter's apartment that felt like the sort of place a person was meant to study. He wasn't sure if it was the bookshelves lining the place, or the fact that it was on a much quieter street than Blaine's apartment so there were fewer undergrads running around getting ready for a party just outside the door, but as he sat at the roll-top secretary desk he couldn't help but feel productive.  
  
Even if he was spending most of his time glancing over his shoulder.  
  
Peter perched in the wingback chair, three books strewn across his lap and an additional half-dozen open on the nearby coffee table. His legs were crossed, argyle socks visible ever since he had kicked off his shoes an hour or so ago, and his jacket was draped neatly over the back of the couch. He hmmed to himself and paused to run his finger under a phrase in one of his books; the motion emphasized the thick vein running from his wrist up beneath where the folded cuff of his shirt sleeve scrunched in the crook of his elbow. After a moment, he shifted his attention to the notebook propped unsteadily on the narrow arm of the chair and began to write, murmuring the phrase of interest under his breath as his fountain pen scratched out the words.  
  
He could be played by Gregory Peck, Blaine thought with a faint smile as he turned in his chair to watch the young man. He was twenty years and a pair of spectacles from Atticus Finch, right down to the commitment to undoing injustice and insistence on tolerance for the misunderstood.  
  
"Peter?" he asked before he could stop himself, and the boy looked up, blinking as his eyes focused. "Sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt you, it can wait-"  
  
"Go ahead, my boy." There was something so different about the way he said it now, as though even though the term of endearment was the same one it had always been, it had gone from meaningless drivel to a shibboleth holding the secret to eternal happiness. Peter's tender smile made Blaine blush a little and look away bashfully for a moment.   
  
It had been a long time since someone had looked at him like that.with girls, it had been so...single-minded. They wanted something from each other. This...Peter looked like he would take any scraps Blaine would give him but secretly wanted the entire world.  
  
"I was just wondering...why you dress the way you do." There was a flash of hurt in the young man's eyes, covered by a quick rigid smile, and Blaine's eyes widened as he realized the misunderstanding. "I like it," he said quickly. "I love the ties, and the way you wear the fedora...I could never pull it off like you can. And you look so distinguished in your suits- It looks great on you." Peter studied him for a moment with a withering look, like he wasn't sure whether to believe Blaine's compliments, but after a stiff silence he seemed to recognize the boy's sincerity and relax a bit, nodding for him to continue. "I just meant that you have all these modern views, but you dress like someone our grandfathers' age. You don't dress like anyone else who seems to feel the same way you do about things - at least not that I've seen on the news, most of them look like they haven't showered in years. And I know it's not about trying to hide how you feel," he added, and Peter grinned at that. "I know you said it's not just about jazz music, but I still don't think I understand...?"  
  
"Why I don't wear black turtlenecks under tattered sport coats and let a beard grow in?" Peter supplied with a teasing smile. Blaine tried to picture it for a moment - Peter,  _his_  Peter, dressed like one of the young men who handed out fliers for weekly protests against the War and literary readings at tiny bars and off-campus apartments - and was filled with a mixture of horror and uncontrollable laughter at the thought. "There's nothing wrong with that, I suppose. It's newfangled in a way that implies that equality and decency are something new, something we've just discovered, like they've just figured out that the world isn't fair even though it's never been fair - and like they think they're the first ones to fight for change when they're not even close. But there's nothing wrong with shunning sartorial rules as a sign of...shaking off the rules and expectations of generations past." His hand circled vaguely, pen held easily between his first two fingers. "I just prefer a stronger look."  
  
"So it's just about liking a tailored jacket and...wide pants being comfortable?" Blaine asked.  
  
Peter thought a moment before explaining haltingly, "I think, perhaps...well. I should say that the wardrobe predates most outward displays of feeling differently. You understand where I grew up, it probably wasn't so different from your own town. Everyone feeling the same, speaking the same, acting the same, glossing over everything that made them uncomfortable or indicated they might have an original view? Love of God and Country from a bunch of men too tied down by family to serve in the Great War anyway?" Blaine nodded to indicate he understood, and Peter continued, "In ninth grade, we studied American History. I had this teacher who didn't just want to stop at World War I like the other classes, you see, her husband had served in the Marines in the Pacific and she was quite proud so she wanted to be sure we understood just what he had done. Perfectly fine, all it meant was that we didn't spend quite so much time on 19th century rail travel, and no one complained about that chapter being cut short. Anyway- she realized that we couldn't simply skip from one war to the other, so she tried to cram the interim 20 years into a week. We studied Prohibition, but I couldn't understand why the government had been so adamantly opposed to a man doing whatever he wanted in his own home. I had never seen anyone actually go to a bar to drink, of course, I only knew how much alcohol was served at your average dinner party." Blaine had to chuckle at that one, because he had never thought about just how unbearable such a party would be without something to distract the adults every so often.  
  
Or maybe it would have been better, he realized suddenly. Without alcohol to smooth everything over, his mother might actually try to have a conversation about something besides upcoming fundraisers and the neighbour's begonias. She might be able to  _feel_ something again, no matter how angry that would make his father, and she might...she might be a person instead of the robot in the elegant Dior party dress.   
  
"So the next day I rode my bicycle to the library and started looking at every book I could find on the era. I thought maybe I had just missed something since we were going through an entire decade in only two days, and that if I could find enough information I could understand why the entire country had been so wrong about something. Maybe my teacher had just left out the reason - maybe the entire world was like a-...well. Like you last fall," he offered, and Blaine looked away for a moment despite the clear teasing in Peter's voice. "That would be enough reason to try to ban alcohol. I never did find a reason that made sense to me, but I found so much else. Stories of men - and a few intensely strong women - who risked life and limb to disobey a law they thought was nonsense. And I thought about protests going on in the South against segregation - they were tiny, but they were large enough to make newspapers in Chicago, and to me..."  
  
"...it seemed like the same principle," Blaine filled in, and Peter grinned, glad Blaine understood.  
  
"Precisely. So that was where it began. But in my quest to better understand the era, I came upon all the ex-patriot writers. Men who left their homelands in search of culture and a sense of freedom and... _meaning_. I felt like I was the only young man in all of Illinois who wanted to leave and never go back. Even if my interest in Chicago did pique around the time I read about Al Capone."  
  
"But that ended horribly," Blaine pointed out. It was what had bothered him since the last time Peter had talked about loving the Jazz Age. "Everyone died - there were violent shoot-outs, massacres, and...and jail sentences. And then the Great Depression came and even the opulence of the people who managed to keep their hands out of the bloodshed went away. Most of them drank themselves to death by 40."  
  
"Well, yes, because they didn't have me," Peter joked. "They weren't as lucky as you, my boy. And ultimately they did win. Prohibition died, but great literature lives on - and gives birth to a new generation of visionaries. But this time, they understand that money is nice but principles and the ability to change the world through their work are far more important. If they didn't, would they be wearing such ratty sportcoats? The Fitzgeralds never would have. Hemingway, maybe," he added with a twinkle in his eye. "Not that the clothes are the point anyway, it's about the freedom to express one's self - to dress precisely the way you feel and say...or sing, or write...precisely what you think." He paused, then admitted with a shy grin, "Though I do like a nice tailored suit. Vanitas vanitatum and all. What about you?"  
  
Blaine wasn't sure he knew what the question was, but he replied, "I think you look great in a tailored suit."  
  
Peter laughed heartily, head falling back as his grin lit up the room. "No, no, my boy. Though I appreciate the compliment. You don't dress quite like your classmates either, was what I meant."  
  
Blaine shifted a little as he thought about it. He had never really thought about why he liked the things he did - why he liked bowties instead of long even though they were less common and seen as a bit too old and old-fashioned for a boy his age; why he favoured cardigans and sweater vests where others might wear either blazers or shirtsleeves; why he refused to give up on bucks even though no one wore them anymore and hadn't since he'd still been in uniforms. "I don't know," he admitted. "I guess wearing school uniforms all the time meant I'm not used to dressing as casually as a lot of the boys around here, but I don't want to dress like I'm at my parents'?" He wasn't sure if that was the right answer, but Peter smiled and nodded.  
  
"That does sound more sensible than what I initially thought."  
  
"What was that?" Blaine asked, curious what theory Peter might have had..or precisely how much time the gentleman had devoted to thinking about why Blaine dressed a certain way.  
  
"I thought you were just trying to show off your shoulders and slim waist. You know, to tease all the rest of us."  
  
Of all the answers Peter could have given, that was the last one Blaine would have expected; he choked slightly, coughing and swallowing to try to get his breathing back to normal. "You- I. Well, you see-" he tried, unable to determine what should come next in the sentence. How did someone respond to something like that?  
  
"Oh come now, Blaine, you can't be that stunned by the compliment," Peter chastised lightly, smile warm. "You must know you look fantastic. With that figure...those hands...those  _eyes_..." his voice got quiet and breathless for a moment, like even the thought of Blaine's gaze made him weak in the knees, and Blaine swallowed hard in a preemptive attempt to keep from choking again.  
  
Was he-...did Peter find him...attractive like that, like...like  _that_?   
  
Blaine wasn't sure which idea was more ludicrous: that a boy thought of him with that awed tone of voice, or that the way he thought about Peter was mutual. He knew on some level he should have expected that was a possibility - if they were boyfriends, he guessed at the very least Peter should like him as much as he liked Peter, but at the same time... The lovestruck expression his boyfriend wore sometimes was shocking enough, let alone the idea that he found him quite so attractive.  
  
Seeing the stunned - and perhaps slightly panicked - expression on Blaine's face, Peter reached over to cup his hand gently. "Don't worry, my dear boy. I may be ahead of my time in some respects, but I am always a gentleman." Blaine wasn't sure how to respond or what exactly that meant he should do now, but the touch of his boyfriend's hand was warm and comforting in and of itself; he managed a faint smile of appreciation. Sensing the need to back off, Peter straightened up a bit and suggested, "If there's nothing else, shall we go back to the books?"  
  
"Sounds good," Blaine replied with a smile that was perhaps a bit overeager. Peter flashed him a grin, then set to rearranging his books to continue his work. Blaine turned back to his own text, but his efforts to study were thwarted by two competing images: young, adorable Peter romanticizing impossibly violent rum-runners and idealizing writers who had to flee their own country to find freedom; and his boyfriend dreaming of him in the same way he dreamt too often lately. Neither image made it easy to concentrate.


	17. Chapter 17

  
The courtroom was more crowded than Blaine expected. When Peter had first suggested going up to watch the trial, he had rolled his eyes because who just drove three and a half hours a day to watch a trial for four people they didn't even know? He wasn't even sure how long a trial  _was_ ; he had asked around, being as vague as possible with a story about friends of his who were in trouble, and according to Fitz whose big brother was in law school at Harvard, it varied from a few days to a month or more. Then Blaine really had to wonder who - aside from his favourite Ph.D. candidate - could put their life on hold to go watch something like that.  
  
But when a free day happened to pop up on his calendar, thanks to a conference where one professor was speaking and a flu that knocked another out of commission for the week, it had piqued Blaine's curiosity. He knew from Peter's phone calls with friends up in the city that the prosecution wasn't going very well - for the prosecutors, anyway - and that the judge was ruling about evenly for both sides. Blaine knew it was probably too much to hope for, for things to go  _well_  for the poor fellows - and poor woman - arrested at the party, but maybe...  
  
He wanted to show his support anyway. There was an unshakable sense that he needed to let them know that they had done what was right, even if they had been arrested. He needed to- it was silly, but he needed to show them that he appreciated the four of them and their friends standing up to make the ball happen. If it hadn't been for them, he wasn't sure he would ever have been able to stand in a room with dozens of homosexual couples dancing without fear, and the feeling he'd had that night was worth so much to him that he needed to do his part to say thank you. Even if he had no say over the law, even if he couldn't do anything to persuade the jury, at the very least he could go and sit in the courtroom so the defendants would know that at least their unjust arrest had meant something.  
  
Peter, of course, had been ecstatic when Blaine had called to ask if they could go up to San Francisco for the day, practically dashing over in Janie's car before Blaine could even finish getting dressed in his conservative dark suit from Christmas. Peter looked as dashing and effortlessly preening as ever, a beaming smile stretched across his face, and he chatted happily all the way up to the city even as Blaine found himself wondering why he had suggested this fool's errand in the first place. He doubted anyone else would be there, which would put them in the awkward position of having to try to explain why they wanted to attend this particular trial. He wasn't even completely sure people were allowed to watch trials, anyway - wasn't there some kind of rule about people having to wait in the hall so it wouldn't taint evidence? Maybe that was only for witnesses.   
  
He hadn't been prepared to turn the corner toward the courtroom and see at least two dozen people milling outside. They ran the gambit from people who, well, looked like activists with their hair past their ears in modern styles and rumpled, ill-fitting suits, to men who would have been indistinguishable from any other white collar professional in the city. A handful of women were present, all dressed neatly - even those who hung back in couples, side by side, not touching. His eyes widened as he surveyed the scene, wondering if these people could possibly all be there for the same trial. Peter's hand grazed his back subtly as he stepped forward to greet a friend with an effusive handshake and grin. "Roger, good to see you again. This is my Blaine."  
  
Blaine knew the conversation continued after that, but he couldn't get past the pronoun. He managed a warm if dazed smile as Roger shook his hand and fumbled out some kind of polite greeting, but still his mind lingered on the "my." He knew in a way that was the closest Peter could come to acknowledging him in public - he couldn't say "my boyfriend" the way a girl could, and while he'd heard some of the men at the bars toss around the word "lover" casually, he knew they certainly couldn't say that in a place with so many law enforcement officers around...and it wasn't really true anyway, at least not yet, but it felt so... _intimate_. The perfect bridge of the gap between "Blaine" and "my boy": More possessive than the former and more intensely personal than the latter, and absolutely perfect, so easy as it rolled off his boyfriend's tongue as though it were the most obvious and casual thing in the world.   
  
He wished he could say something - thank him, maybe, or express how warm it made him feel, but he couldn't. The moment was gone, and there were too many people around even if he could have crafted his response quickly enough. All he could do was look at Peter, unable to keep an adoring smile off his face, and hope the message would be understood.  
  
After about a ten-minute wait, a bored-looking secretary emerged from an office down the hall and plodded toward the courtroom door. Shifting in her loafers, she dug into her skirt pocket to retrieve a key ring, then she selected a key and unlocked the righthand door of the pair, not even bothering to pull it open before plodding back toward the office from whence she had come. The band of spectators, which by now had nearly doubled in size compared to when they had arrived, filed in wordlessly. Blaine stared at two rows of wooden benches that looked to him like church pews, wondering on which side of the aisle he and Peter should sit. He assumed one side was for people who were supporting the defendants and the other was for people supporting the police or the state or whoever, but he didn't remember enough of To Kill a Mockingbird to remember which side was which. Roger, however, seemed to know where he was going, and Blaine followed him to a bench on the far side of the courtroom, closer to the window. Peter slipped into place beside him and nudged his side with a fond smile as though trying to entertain and reassure him, but Blaine wasn't sure what he needed reassured over.  
  
He wasn't in trouble. He wasn't one of the ones on trial. He hadn't actually done anything wrong, even if it felt like the trial was about all of them - all the men he'd been scared of growing up, all the men like them at the bars, all the men dancing close with boyfriends in the darkened corners of the masquerade. He hadn't stopped the police from doing anything, and he hadn't stood in their way as they tried to break into the party, and really he hadn't  _done_...much of anything at all. Not even as long as he had known that people like him were worth protecting and saving. The closest he had come was shouting at the officer leading the group out, and that wasn't nearly enough considering how much he stood to lose if the defendants were found guilty.  
  
He should have been doing more. All these years, all this time he had known what horrible things went on at his father's office...seeing brave men like Peter and Kurt stand up for themselves, and he had done nothing. A year ago he could have blamed it on being too scared of what people would say, but none of the defendants were homosexuals - at least not as far as he or Peter knew. At least two of the men had loving wives helping out at the party that night. He could have at least helped people before, couldn't he?  
  
One of the double-doors swung open, and two men in crisp suits entered. They strode in with full briefcases, a secretary struggling to carry a heavy box of papers behind them, and avoided eye contact with the full pews of spectators; it didn't take much to figure out that they were the prosecutors. A few moments later, the doors swung open again and a man and woman entered, looking more bedraggled and exhausted, overworked. The woman headed straight for the table at the front of the courtroom, setting up two sets of notebooks and pens as well as an enormous stack of file folders, but the man lingered for a few moments, flashing a tired but genuine smile at the onlookers. After another moment, the four defendants filed in and he ushered them to their seats beside the table.  
  
They looked calm, Blaine realized. He would have been terrified if he were them. He didn't even know what their sentences might be, but just the prospect of being questioned by the prosecutors and having a slate of police officers in their best uniforms testifying against him, calling him all the things he was sure they would call him...his eyes drifted toward the empty jury box. Would any of the people there understand? Would any of them feel even the tiniest bit of empathy at the thought of being arrested for helping out-...did any of them know a homosexual? Had they ever met one? Did they even know if their own child was-  
  
His own father would vote against him, he knew with a sickening lurch of his stomach. His own parents, if they were called to serve on a jury, would say that the police were right every single time. His father might find him not guilty but only because he would genuinely believe that any homosexual frequenting a homosexual bar must simply be too sick to know what he was doing.  
  
"Relax," Peter whispered, and Blaine was about to explain that he was fine - because he was, honestly, he was frustrated and mournful and regretting so much, but he was fine all the same - when he saw where Peter's attention was focused. A line of policemen, backs straight, chins out, hats tucked neatly under their arms, paraded into the courtroom. Badges glinting in the morning sunlight, they stood for a moment and glared at the collection of odd-looking courtwatchers before taking their own seats just across the aisle. "They just try to intimidate anyone they can't control, my boy. They can't do anything to us - you can't arrest a person just for coming to watch a trial."  
  
Before Blaine could respond, a voice boomed out "All rise!" The spectators scrambled to their feet, and Blaine fumbled with his jacket button as a balding man in a long black robe swept into the courtroom from a door at the opposite end of the room. He took his place at the bench and opened a file folder before peering down at the parties. "Are you ready to proceed?" After one attorney from each side assented, he requested, "Bring in the jury." The attorneys and onlookers remained standing as two short rows of men and women filed from another doorway into the jury box. They ranged in age from a young man who probably wasn't much older than Peter and wore an ill-fitting shirt and ugly clip-on bowtie that suggested he probably wasn't used to dressing for an office, to a woman who looked like she could be someone's grandmother, hair white and curly. None of them looked like someone Blaine instantly felt a connection with - a few looked like people he could have met before, but nothing like Peter. Not even like Kurt. No one who made him feel like he was looking at someone else who understood what he felt.   
  
That couldn't be a good sign.  
  
He felt queasy as he took his seat, unbuttoning his jacket, and he tried to follow what the sides were saying as the judge asked - something procedural, that was all the more he could tell. Something about more witnesses and a motion and...he had no idea. Maybe Fitz's brother would understand it - he wondered if the next time he and Peter came to something like this, he could convince one of the law students to come with them and translate all of this for them. If there was another time, he hoped there wouldn't be. He wondered if any of the rest of them understood this - maybe Ted actually knew what was going on. Maybe some of them who looked like they had been here before actually knew what the prosecutors were talking about.   
  
One of the prosecutors stood and began to address the jury, pacing slowly in front of them, and the longer he spoke the angrier Blaine could feel himself getting. He knew that it was the man's job to convince these people what the defendants had done wrong, but none of what he said was at all like what had happened. The ticket taker had been sweet in the face of police taunting her and every person who walked up to her table, and Blaine was certain she hadn't attempted to manhandle an officer who would have been at least twice her size. And the idea that the police had been intimidated by the lawyers- they had been standing there with cameras to deter anyone from going to the party- "How can they say that?" he muttered under his breath angrily, unable to help himself.  
  
"Shhh," Peter mumbled, glancing over at him for only a moment.  
  
"I'm sorry, but that's ridiculous-"  
  
"I know, my boy, I know. It's their job to defend awful people. Just wait until it's our turn."  
  
He knew that, logically, but he didn't know how the defendants could possibly stay silent while they heard so many lies about themselves, about what they had supposedly done...and what about all the jury watching, waiting to decide what should happen to these four people? They couldn't possibly think that the defendants were anything but criminals from a description like that, and it was up to them-  
  
The prosecutor sat down, and the female defense attorney stood and said something else that Blaine didn't understand. The judge nodded, thoughtful, then glanced at his file for a moment before he replied with a single word.  
  
"Granted." He had no idea what the judge granted, but from the immediate response at the defense table it was something good; the attorneys grinned at one another for a split second before refocusing their attention on the judge, and the ticket taker's head fell backward as she let out a sigh of relief. He was about to ask Peter if he understood what had happened when the judge continued, "Due to the failure of the State of California to prove its case, I hereby grant Defendants' motion and order the jury to enter a verdict of not guilty on all charges-"  
  
There was more, but Blaine couldn't concentrate enough to understand it. Not guilty.  _Not guilty_. The defendants could go back to living their lives, and they could- Peter reached over and squeezed his leg, his own eyes wide even as he stared straight ahead at the judge, as though unwilling to look away for fear it might all be a dream or hallucination. Blaine could feel one of the police officers glaring right at him as though trying to bore a hole in the side of his head from sheer contempt, but he couldn't bring himself to care because in that moment it didn't matter. The defendants weren't guilty. The judge had said so - and it hadn't mattered whether the jury thought so or not. There wasn't much that was more powerful than a jury, but a judge certainly was.   
  
He stood, numb, as the jury and then judge filed out. Only after they had gone did a cheer rise up in the gallery. Peter tugged him into a tight hug, beaming and almost giggling the same way he had been the night of the party when Blaine had been unable to stop himself from telling the officer what he thought, so giddy with victory and pride that he could hardly contain himself. "We won," he whispered, grin looking like it just might be so wide it physically hurt; Blaine couldn't keep his own smile at bay as it began to really hit him. "We  _won_ , my boy, the judge ordered it and everything. Just like when they said homosexuals were no reason to shut down a bar. Even I didn't think it could be like this." He pulled back a moment, eyes wide and glassy as he shook his head with a broad grin. "Perfect. Simply brilliant."  
  
Blaine felt like he couldn't even begin to speak, so full of  _everything_  he couldn't put it in order. He knew logically it was just about four people and they weren't even homosexuals themselves - they were respectable church folks - but that wasn't the point. None of that mattered; they had  _won_. A judge had said the police were wrong and couldn't prove that the people manning the party were doing anything wrong, even if the hotel had been full of homosexuals, and nothing in the world could dampen the ecstasy that came with that.  
  
He wanted to jump on top of the nearest bench and sing - or put on an impromptu show on the top step of the courthouse. "Dancing in the Streets" seemed appropriate...okay, it was probably a bit much, even Peter would agree with that, but he wasn't sure he could put any of how he felt into words without music to help carry him.   
  
"Let's go home," Peter urged, and Blaine was surprised for a moment.   
  
"Really? I thought you would want to stay here and celebrate - isn't there going to be some kind of celebration?" Even though it was early in the day, he thought for sure at least the few dozen of them would want to go to some bar up on Polk Street and share the good news over drinks Peter wouldn't let him have.  
  
"I'd rather celebrate with you," Peter replied. The intensity just behind the taller man's beaming smile caught Blaine off-guard, and he swallowed as he tried to collect his response. "Come on - we've got all day and nowhere to be, my boy. I'll buy you lunch on the way."   
  
There was nothing inherently different about his invitation, but something about it seemed...intense. New. Suggestive in a way that Blaine hadn't exactly tried to encourage. He wasn't sure if he had adequately discouraged it - or if he really wanted to, exactly - and he guessed couples celebrated things in different ways. And maybe he was completely misreading it, but the look in Peter's eyes was terrifying and enticing all at once. He simply nodded, trying to take deep breaths to calm his churning stomach, and allowed Peter to lead the way out of the courthouse and away from the jubilant band of trial watchers, their excited chatter fading into the background as they neared the car.  
  
They fell into their usual comfortable silence as soon as they started the drive, and then Blaine felt silly. What kind of thing was that to assume? Peter was just a naturally intense person sometimes, and he was certainly attractive, and just because Blaine's mind had wandered  _there_  for no reason in particular didn't mean that was at all what Peter had been trying to suggest.  
  
Only...what if it had been? What if that really was what Peter wanted to do when they arrived back at his cozy apartment with nowhere to be until the next day? What if he really had been suggesting a celebratory... _romp_? And what if he wasn't ready to-  
  
That was an even more ridiculous thought. Even if that were what Peter had been thinking and even if he did want to, Blaine felt absolutely certain that Peter wouldn't be one of those boys who moved on to someone else just because he wasn't ready.  
  
...But what if he  _was_  ready, at least in part, but didn't have any idea what to do?  
  
He didn't know much about the mechanics of anything - well, except what little he had done in high school and tried to forget - but from what he could gather there was one person who did more like the girl role and one who performed essentially the same role as any other boy. He could certainly do  _that_  part - he'd done that enough before. So as long as Peter didn't try to insist he do something else, he could figure things out along the way. If they did anything, which he wasn't sure they would. Peter so far had been nothing but respectful - a lot of heated kissing sessions on the couch and once on Blaine's bed for a little while, with plenty of adoring smiles and just a bit of touching from the neck up, all of which had been hard enough to get used to but in the best kind of way. So if Peter wanted to, Blaine was confident he could at least do the one thing if he needed to, and that would be plenty to celebrate.  
  
If they were celebrating  _that_  way at all, which Blaine was sure was silly. Who celebrated a blow to police authority by having sex? Unless it was almost a form of protest, like proving that the long arm of the law couldn't reach into their bedroom, but even that seemed like a bit of a stretch for them.   
  
A little more certain and a lot more relaxed, Blaine settled back into his seat, fairly sure the celebration wouldn't head that direction, at least not today. He wasn't sure if he was relieved or disappointed.  
  
* * * * *  
  
As the Music Department showcase drew near, Blaine found himself worrying. He was unaccustomed to nerves before a performance, certainly several days in advance, and it wasn't until he sat at home the night before the final rehearsal making notes of things he needed to tell the Mendicants to work on that he realized the cause:  
  
He had never meant to be in charge of them. He was happy to lead the way, especially by example, but the more the boys joked about how this was his Masters Project (which it wasn't) and referred to him as the lead singer, the more uncomfortable he felt in his role. He didn't want to be the self-proclaimed infallible head of the group who dictated what songs they performed and took the lead in every number. It was bad enough he was the oldest and the only one who wasn't taking undergraduate courses, but the guys had told him over and over again at the end of last year that they wanted him to stay if he were willing; but now, as more of them joked about being his backup singers, he had to wonder where he had gone awry.  
  
Had he muscled his way into this? He always thought he tried to open it up to discussion, and he certainly never tried to pressure others into giving him the lead or agreeing with his song choices, but he guessed he did arrange all the songs and he did lead the meetings, so maybe that was why they deferred to him all the time? They had even accepted his kind of nontraditional song choice for the showcase without so much as an argument, even though it wasn't exactly the type of music they had been doing. It was current, which he knew a contingent of them really liked, but it was a lot slower and comprised of mostly building, swelling chords which wasn't their usual style.   
  
By the time he stood backstage, waiting for the two groups ahead of them to finish before they went on, he couldn't take it anymore. If he was strongarming the group without meaning to - however subconsciously - then it had to stop. There were plenty of guys who would be just as good of a leader and who would allow more of the voices to be heard, both in meetings and during performances.   
  
...But he couldn't exactly  _ask_  the group what they thought, because if they all deferred to him then wouldn't they just say he was fine?  
  
Ted stood off toward the edge of the group, and he immediately seemed the best target. In the year and a half Blaine had known him, he had certainly never pulled any punches about disliking Hank's leadership, and he did his fair share of eye-rolling this year...if anyone were going to be honest with him, surely it would be Ted. Blaine glanced around and, seeing the rest of the guys sufficiently distracted and engrossed in their own side conversations, he approached the boy. "Can I talk to you a second?" Ted's eyes narrowed suspiciously but he nodded, arms crossing over his chest. Blaine hesitated, then ventured, "Do you think I pushed the group into this?"  
  
"What do you mean?"  
  
He guessed he should have been prepared for the question, but it took him a moment to figure out the right way to put his feelings into a question. "I was the one who suggested performing at the showcase, I was the one who picked the song, and then I'm the one singing lead - like I do all the time. Isn't that kind of like using the group for my own on-call backup singers?"  
  
Ted's expression was difficult to read but seemed to veer toward skepticism. "You're asking me this now?"  
  
It wasn't the response Blaine had expected, but it seemed to confirm exactly what he thought. He should have thought to ask it earlier - now was too late. He sighed, head hanging. "You're right."  
  
"Why do you think you're some kind of awful leader?"  
  
Blaine looked up, surprised, not sure how exactly to reply. "What do you mean?"  
  
"Blaine. You wrangle a dozen guys with different tastes in music and practically no experience and get us all to sing together. You know why?" Ted waited barely a second before answering his own question. "Because you listen to everyone. You listen to the group, you get a consensus, and you create a performance better than anyone else in that room could."  
  
That certainly wasn't what he was expecting to hear, and his immediate response inched toward indelicate. "Then why do you constantly look like you're fighting the urge to roll your eyes?"  
  
Ted smirked faintly and shrugged. "The 'aw shucks' routine. It drives me up a wall. You're the leader. You're a good one. Just be proud of it and stop trying to demur all the time. The guys trust you to be in charge and don't mind harmonizing in the background as long as it's you singing lead. Stop worrying so much about whether you're standing out."  
  
Through the curtain Blaine could hear the audience applaud for a performer who had just finished, and the chorus immediately before them filed out onstage. He started to turn away, ready to lead the group closer to the curtain, but paused and turned back to ask, "So you're really happy with how things are going?"  
  
Ted offered a faint smirk and nodded, adding, "Yeah. Just wish they'd stop being so scared of 'girl songs.' Some of those would be great for a group like ours - and girls dig 'em." He disappeared into the group of boys whispering to one another with a mix of excitement and nervousness, leaving Blaine standing just beyond the throng.   
  
Maybe Ted was right. Maybe he wasn't as bad at this as he worried. Maybe the reason they followed what he said was because they liked the direction he was leading them.  
  
With a renewed sense of security and purpose, Blaine grinned and stood a little taller, striding to the front of the group. The chorus before them finished, bowed in a perfectly-timed motion, and filed off in a perfect line. Blaine bounced twice on the balls of his feet to get himself in the proper state of mind to perform in front of such a large auditorium, then led his loyal followers into position. When the last Mendicant had reached center stage, Blaine turned and pulled out his pitch pipe, sounding the opening note, then turned back to face the audience. He drew in a deep breath and nodded, listening as the group behind him [began](http://youtu.be/orLvmSyUb34) with a cascading series of chords that filled the hall.  
  
He had been nervous about the song choice, he had to admit; it wasn't exactly their usual popular rock and roll song fare, and it wasn't even doo-wop-y enough to be something the audience might be able to relate to when they heard the acapella group start to sing. It was a popular  _song_ , he reasoned, and more than that it was important, but it wasn't the sort of song he could take lightly.  
  
Luckily for him, it summed up how he felt lately.  
  
 _I was born by the river in a little tent  
Oh and just like the river I've been runnin' ev'ry since  
It's been a long, a long time coming  
But I know a change gonna come  
Oh yes it will_  
  
He didn't know if he could sum it up any better in words than he could in song, but there was something in the air lately. Maybe it was just because of the trial, the verdict where the judge had said that having a party with homosexuals wasn't a good enough reason for people to have to let in the police. Maybe it had been building for a long time. He supposed it could even just be that he had felt so awful for so long that any breath of fresh air felt like immense relief and release. But things were  _changing_. He couldn't say exactly where they were going or what might happen, but he was certain that it would be better next year than the last. He didn't know when the police might finally back off, but they  _would_ , and people like them could gather more freely, and someday things would be fair. They would be how they should have been.  
  
Not just someday, either, but someday  _soon_.  
  
 _It's been too hard livin' but I'm afraid to die  
I don't know what's up there beyond the sky  
It's been a long, a long time coming  
But I know a change is gonna come  
Oh yes it will_  
  
He couldn't ever remember feeling such a sense of possibility before, of  _hope_...but he remembered someone who had. He remembered Kurt coming to him with "Somewhere" before Regionals back at Dalton; he had been so scared then, so terrified that someone in that audience would know what the song meant to them and what they were. He hadn't even been able to pinpoint what they could do to him, but he knew it would be awful. Kurt had never seen that - he had seen unfairness and a world that had been cruel to him and his best friend, but what he really saw was a judge who ordered the bigoted, narrow-minded schoolboard to obey the law. To uphold the Constitution and to do what was right, no matter how much they wanted to stay stuck in their backwater ways.   
  
And someday soon, he bet, a singing group wouldn't have to vote to abstain from a national competition because it was being held in a city where half the members couldn't even stay in the same hotel with the rest of their teammates. Soon there couldn't be a city like that, not with the law that Congress had passed last summer, and they could just be people. They could all just be Warblers.  
  
Even boys like him and Kurt. They could be like everyone else - but not like his parents. It wouldn't be fake like that. They could be equal without pretending to be something they weren't, and he could have family without drinking himself into a stupor to kiss a girl, and everything could be just like it should have been all along.  
  
 _I go to the movie and I go downtown  
Somebody keep tellin' me don't hang around  
It's been a long, a long time coming  
But I know a change gonna come  
Oh yes it will_  
  
Blaine looked out over the audience, hoping they could understand what he was trying to convey, but a familiar face caught his eye. He had no idea why Kurt would be there, why those bright eyes would be shining out at him from halfway back in the auditorium, but he looked so wonderful - hair perfect, smile positively beaming, so completely proud of him. He felt his heart stop a moment as he fought the urge to jump off the stage and run to him and show the boy he was right to be proud - he had been right about  _everything_ , and he-  
  
Then he was gone. Blaine blinked and saw an unfamiliar old man peering at him, watching with curiosity but nothing like the palpable joy he had seen from the elusive young man only a moment before.  
  
He knew it made sense, of course; Kurt wouldn't be at a random music showcase in California, and even if he had known where to find Blaine he was sure the boy wouldn't try after so many years. And even if he had, that didn't mean anything because Blaine had someone he was very, very fond of, someone he owed everything to.  
  
...But the idea that Kurt would be proud of him for this, for choosing a song like this one, for honestly believing it...  
  
 _Then I go to my brother  
And I say "Brother, help me please."  
But he winds up knockin' me  
Back down on my knees_  
  
He tore his gaze from where he had imagined his lost love and shook his head slightly to clear his thoughts and bring himself back to the song. He had to finish strong, especially on a song like this that swelled to a dramatic finish, and he knew he had the emotion to pour into it if he concentrated enough. He bet he could convince the people in the audience that they were on the brink of something, too, if he showed them how much-  
  
Okay, maybe not all of them, though that would be nice. But he bet somewhere out in that audience was a boy who was just as scared as he had been, and if he could just show  _him_ , convince  _him_  that better things were possible, that change was coming and they could have an entire world he never would have believed in before...if he could just help one person, then everything would be worth it. He could never fully repay Peter, even if they were together a hundred years, but this could be a start.  
  
His boyfriend sat in the third row by the lefthand aisle. Blaine knew he had considered bringing flowers but didn't want to risk embarrassing - or scaring, had been an unspoken addition - his young man. His smile was just as proud as make-believe-Kurt's had been, but with so much more certainty in his eyes. Peter never doubted he could believe this. He had never doubted Blaine's progress for a moment. And the adoration all over his face...It took a lot of concentration for Blaine not to blush or return the look. He wished he could sing something just for him - this was close, it was  _about_  the two of them, but it was for the world. It was for everyone else to know what was happening around them...and Peter deserved a song just for him, just for them together.   
  
This, though, wasn't a bad consolation prize.  
  
 _There've been time that I thought I couldn't last for long_  
But now I think I'm able to carry on  
It's been a long, a long time coming  
But I know a change is gonna come  
Oh yes it will  
  
The Mendicants perfectly hit the thunderous chord behind him, and he beamed as the applause began. It wasn't a standing ovation, and it was obvious that not everyone had been as enamored of the song as he was, but the pockets of enthusiastic cheering were enough for Blaine. Besides, his group had been perfect; they could not possibly have done any better. Considering that a year before they hadn't even existed and started by causing riots with Whiffenpoof standards, he couldn't have been more proud of them...or of himself.


	18. Chapter 18

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Rating is NC-17 for this chapter.
> 
> Note: There are a lot of sex practices that went on in eras before ours that were...not the safest of sex practices. Condoms were very uncommon, and now they're a must. And let's just say there was no Pur and KY was mostly used for medical instruments. (This is the first of many such warnings I expect to write, if only because, well, the 70s are coming.)

  
Blaine was starting to understand how important studying could be. He supposed it probably helped that more and more he and Peter were abandoning their books earlier and earlier in the evening in favour of a jazz album and tea.  
  
And sometimes other things. Conversation, mostly, but sometimes...things that weren't conversation.  
  
He still wasn't sure about it all the time, and they hadn't done  _everything_  yet - mostly a lot of necking between slow, tender kisses But he knew it was coming, probably sooner rather thann later. They had been dating for almost three months, and he didn't know of many people who waited that long anymore. He was sure people  _did_  - an entire country didn't go from waiting until marriage to going all the way in a coat closet while a party went on two rooms away, but among the boys he knew - and girls who went with boys he knew - he knew three months was probably enough time to try to wait, especially when waiting until marriage really wasn't an option.  
  
It wasn't that he didn't want to, either, because he did. He  _really_  did, more than he wanted to want it. Certainly more than he wanted to admit to wanting certain things. The way he felt with Peter's body pressed warm and heavy against him, or as his boyfriend's shirt-clad bicep brushed against his own - it was definitely not a matter of lack of interest.  
  
The problem was much harder to explain than that.  
  
It wasn't wrong - he knew that now. He wasn't sick, and having sex wouldn't be some sign of crossing an illusory line into a new level of severity. He could understand all of that, at least logically, but at the same time...it was hard not to feel sick as he woke up from dreams. Too much conditioning over too many years, he supposed, and something that felt like fear of the unknown  
  
Still, when Peter showed up on a Thursday night with a stack of books that they both knew wouldn't be touched and a larger cache of albums Blaine knew he hadn't heard before, he didn't hesitate to invite the boy in, pausing in the kitchen to put on the kettle.  
  
"How was your day, my boy?" Peter asked, smiling as he toed off his oxfords and sat on the edge of the bed. He set his books beside Blaine's on the desk and leaned back, studying one of the record sleeves.  
  
"It was great," he replied as he pulled two mugs from the closet. He had four now, up from exactly one at the beginning of the year, and three boxes of different teas Peter liked. Who knew there were three kinds of tea, anyway? Blaine had thought the only kind was Liptons.  
  
"How was the performance? I meant to go but lost track of time." From someone else it might have sounded dismissive, but even with Peter's perpetually affected tone that Blaine found really charming and adorable, he sounded sincerely apologetic for missing even such a routine song in an archway.  
  
"It went well," Blaine replied, grinning as he recalled the crowd response. "Baby I Need Your Loving - it gave the guys a chance to flirt with the girls, so they were into it, but mostly it's just a really amazing song with an explosion of harmony."  
  
"Sounds lovely. Did Fitz stop making eyes long enough to sing this time?"  
  
Blaine laughed softly, shaking his head as he poured the boiling water. "He says it's not his fault he gets distracted by redheads."  
  
"All three of them on the whole of campus - thank you, my boy," Peter smiled as Blaine handed him a steaming mug then sat opposite him in the desk chair. They were so close their knees practically touched, which Blaine noticed mostly because it meant he was all the closer to his boyfriend's winning grin. "Did Ted finally slug him to get his attention?"  
  
"Would he really do that?" Blaine asked skeptically. He's always pretty professional." He found himself appreciating Ted more now that he understood where he was coming from and knew the guy didn't hate and resent his leadership.   
  
"He certainly looks like he would enjoy it," Peter replied, sipping his tea. "Perhaps just wishful thinking on his part." He shifted, his leg brushing against Blaine's, and suddenly the space between them seemed even smaller.  
  
This was silly, Blaine chided himself. they were close to each other all the time now. The simple touch of the side of a knee against one another should not make it seem like the room was shrinking in on them both. Maybe when they were first talking, sure, but they had been together - and kissing regularly - for three months now. In fact, they touched so often that Peter didn't even look like he noticed, idly drinking from his mug as though nothing had happened. How could he not notice? Did he not feel- or want-  
  
Blaine took a deep breath to try to calm himself down. Nothing  _had_  happened, so why should Peter act differently? The chair and bed were in precisely the same places they had been, and Peter's enchanging smile wasn't actually any more prominent, and soon they would both finish their tea and give a flimsy excuse to avoid doing homework in favour of kissing - the same way they did almost every night.  
  
So why did it feel like things were getting more complicated and intense? Why could he not stop dreaming about things that made him blush and-  
  
Things would happen when they happened. There was nothing wrong with being cautious, especially since he had no idea what he was doing. Blaine nodded to himself, not realizing he had done so until Peter asked, "Penny for your thoughts?" he smiled, eyes so genuinely curious and concerned that it made Blaine's chest ache, and he couldn't help but smile; it was nervous but genuine.  
  
"Do you ever think about going further?"  
  
Peter paused, seemingly caught off-guard for a moment by the question, but after a second of contemplation he replied, "If Janie can spare the car for a weekend, I would love to go see Los Angeles. It shouldn't be an awful drive from here, and there are meant to be some incredible jazz clubs down there."  
  
"What? Oh- no, I meant-..." The verb was all the trouble. Of course Peter didn't know what he was talking about; he hadn't  _said_ anything. He had never had trouble talking about it before - though, the more he thought about it, the more he was pretty sure he had never actually talked about it. All the girls operated the way he had, with an understanding of what would happen next. In high school he had actively avoided the topic and considered it a personal victory if he didn't literally run away. So now, the idea of spelling out what he meant and what he was had been thinking...where would he even begin?  
  
The same place he had begun with everything else, Blaine supposed:by being honest with himself about what he wanted and letting Peter reassure him on the topic.   
  
"I didn't mean further than San Francisco," he admitted, "but I'm happy to go with you, I've never been. No, I meant...going all the way."  
  
Peter stilled, so deep in thought that didn't move a muscle, eyes unfocused as though he were trying to work out a complex mathematical equation in his head. Blaine shifted as his nervousness increased, waiting for Peter to say something - anything. He shouldn't have brought it up; it was too soon. They hadn't been together long enough, and maybe Peter wasn't even attracted to him that way. He had thought- but maybe he had been wrong and necking didn't even lead to sex for homosexuals. He knew two men  _could_  do that, courtesy of second-hand stories told by his father "out of polite company," but he had no idea if that started with kissing. Maybe it was completely different for men like them.   
  
"Of course I have," Peter finally replied, voice deliberately calm and even as he looked at Blaine; Blaine wanted to protest for a moment that he wasn't a stray animal who might spook, but he guessed he had given enough proof to the contrary. "But the last thing I would ever want to do is push you into something."  
  
"You're not," Blaine replied quickly. "Thank you, I appreciate it, but I'm okay. I was the one who asked."  
  
"True," Peter mused. He set his mostly-empty mug on the nightstand and studied Blaine. "have you ever, before?" He didn't use the verb, either, but from the way he sat back, leaning easily on the bed, and maintained constant eye contact, it certainly seemed like the omission was one of a proper young man and not out of nerves or squeamishness.  
  
"Of course-" Blaine started to reply, because Peter knew he'd had sex before, but the young man cut him off.  
  
"With another  _boy_ , my dear."  
  
Blaine ducked his head as he admitted, "Not really."  
  
"Define 'not really.'" Blaine didn't even know what that meant, and when he struggled to answer, Peter clarified, "What we've been doing - is that the furthest you've gone?"  
  
Narrowing the question didn't help Blaine know how to answer. Should he say yes, omit the experiences he didn't want to have to elaborate on, and pretend he was even more of a novice than he really was? Admit to oral sex in his dorm room which had gone well enough and would let him sound better than either a novice or the scum of the earth who had literally left the boy he was crazy about half-naked on a couch in the common room?  
  
"No," he admitted honestly. "I haven't done everything, but I've done more."  
  
Peter nodded, seemingly pleased with that answer. "Good. Good - hands, I assume? It's usually the next logical progression even if you don't know anything about what you're doing  
  
Blaine flinched at the memory of touching Kurt - the feel of it in his hand, the look of intense surprise and pleasure as he finished...and the wide-eyed look of confusion and betrayal a few minutes later as Blaine had dashed from the room, holding up his pants with one hand.  He had thrown up after, retching into the toilet at the end of the hall of the main building, then skittered across the back lawn and to his dorm, absolutely certain that someone would know he was now severely ill.  His only consolation had been that his burning regret meant he hadn't been a difficult case - he had wanted nothing more than to stop wanting and to be better.  
  
Except to be better and to not have hurt Kurt.  
  
Things were different now -  _he_  was different.  He knew that.  He was still afraid, yes, but for different reasons.  He couldn't have conceived of reasons like this back then.  Still, the look in his former love's eyes haunted him, and he shook his head to try to clear it as he attempted to figure out how precisely to explain what he had done without going into  _what he had done_.  
  
"I take it things didn't go well," Peter supposed, and not for the first time Blaine had to admire the man's gift for understatement.  He nodded, and Peter patted his knee sympathetically.  "It was a long time ago."  
  
"Very," Blaine agreed.  Not long enough to forget, but he wasn't sure any length of time would be sufficient.  
  
"So we'll go slow," Peter assured him.  "If you still want."  
  
"I do," Blaine replied.  Even admitting it made his stomach start to flutter, but Peter's hadn on his leg was warm and reassuring.  
  
"Then..."  Peter scooted over on the bed and patted the space beside him, flashing an almost shy smile.  "Why don't we start with what we've been doing, and we'll keep going until you want to stop.  How's that sound?"  
  
Blaine smiled; he tried not to look as nervous as he felt, but he wasn't sure it came across as well as he had hoped.  "Sounds great."  
  
Peter thought a moment, then stood and grabbed a record from the stack.  "Go ahead and get comfortable, my boy - I'll join you in a moment."  He put on the album and strains of quiet jazz piano filled the room, then padded into the bathroom - leaving Blaine alone with his nerves.  
  
He had no idea what men... _did_.  He knew a couple things, both of which he had already done with disastrous consequences, and he knew in the most general, polite terms what sodomites were and did, but the mechanics of how precisely two men did something that was- for lack of a better way of putting it, a lot more... _intuitive_  between a man and a woman...eluded him.   
  
Maybe it wouldn't be so different from what he had done before, he thought as he sat on the bed.  It wasn't as thought he had never had sex before - he'd done it plenty of times.  There hadn't been any complaints by the girls, either, so he was pretty sure he was good at it.  And if that had been enjoyable at the time, he could imagine how incredible it would be now.  The difference in what a kiss had felt like as a sloppy-drunk pre-coupling, compared to what it felt like when Peter kissed him...  
  
It would be great.  And he certainly had enough experience in feigning confidence and ease until he could truly feel it that he was pretty sure of his ability to do that here.  All he had to do was pretend to know what he was doing and use what he knew of girls to get by until-  
  
The bathroom door opened and Peter emerged.  His fedora was gone, hair pushed back roughly into shape.  Blaine's eyes widened as he realized the hat wasn't all Peter had shed; the young man was clad only in his trousers - feet bare on the floor, torso exposed and-  _oh_   He swallowed hard as he took in the vision before him.  He had long-admired his boyfriend's body subtly through the fabric of his henleys, but even that fabric had left  _something_  to the imagination.  Blaine's imagination, though active, would not have come up with  _this_.  This chest was broad but not too muscular, more of a natural build than the product of time spent on calisthenics.  There was a fine smattering of light brown hair along the center of his chest, continuing down over his flat stomach and then disappearing beneath the waistband of his pants.  His shoulders were more sloped than Blaine had expected without the sharp shoulder of a blazer to square them, but his arms were thick - sturdy, strong, with hints of veins weaving their way from the back of his hand on up.  He stood straight in the middle of the room, making no attempts to hide or cover himself, unashamed- As well he should be, Blaine thought.  The idea that anyone who looked like that had complimented  _him_...  Peter reached up to rake his hair back again, then ventured, "Button-down shirts are difficult to get off once we start."  
  
"I...what?"  Blaine asked.  Had he missed the first part of that?  It seemed to come out of nowhere.  
  
Peter laughed gently, grinning, and clarified, "From experience.  It's hard to fumble with all the buttons while we're...distracted."  
  
Blaine nodded, then looked down at his own shirt.  Should he take it off, too?  Because he could imagine the buttons would get in the way.  They certainly had slowed things down with a girl or two, especially under the influence of Jack or Jim or even just way too much beer, but at the same time, wouldn't it be a little awkward for Peter to stand there and watch him undress?  Although, judging from the way Peter kept looking at him, maybe that was what he was waiting for.  
  
What if he didn't like what he saw?  
  
That was ridiculous.  He looked good - maybe not  _as_  good as the young man in front of him, but good enough that Peter wouldn't run screaming or delicately excuse himself as quickly as possible.  And Peter had complimented him before.  Besides, he had never worried about how he looked before, so why start now?  
  
Because Peter would remember it in the morning.  And so would he.  
  
He took a deep breath to calm his nerves enough to put on a front of bravado, then reached up to undo his bowtie.  He slipped it off his neck and tossed it gently onto the desk, thumb flicking open his collar button, then looked up - just to be sure he was on the right track.  Peter's gaze burned into him as he unbuttoned his shirt, then slipped it off his shoulders leaving him in just his undershirt and slacks.  He was glad the shirt was clean and freshly bleached, because sometimes he wore an old faded one when no one would see it under his button-down shirt, but no one - not even someone who enjoyed finding beauty in unconventional things and styles of music - would find an old undershirt attractive.  
  
"Oh," Peter murmured, and Blaine's head jerked up to figure out what that meant.  Was it good?  Disappointed?  Regretful?  Peter looked... _awed_ , and Blaine really had no idea why.  Better than the alternative, to be sure, but stunning to say the least.  Peter knelt on the foot of the bed and closed the distance between them quickly.  Blaine gasped softly at the first touch of warm skin against his arm, and Peter's mouth covered his a moment later in an eager kiss.  A quiet moan escaped Blaine's lips, and he could feel Peter beam at the response.  
  
This much was familiar, at least - the way Peter's mouth felt, tasted - like spicy mint and black tea; the way his hand cupped Blaine's jaw, so that his thumb stroked along the cheekbone as he kissed, like he wanted to keep Blaine in place and reassure him all at the same time.  Blaine couldn't say he minded if that were the case.  Certain things though- Blaine assumed they weren't actually new, they just felt that way, like the warmth of Peter's palm along his side - his boyfriend had certainly touched his side before, but through only the thin fabric of his undershirt, it felt a hundred times more intense.  And the bulge against this hip that ground against his hip as Peter shifted with each hard kiss-  
  
Okay, that might be new.  
  
Not new, Blaine corrected himself.  He had felt it before, but it had never been so... _consequential._   Usually he felt it for a few minutes several hours into a session of long, slow kisses before Peter pulled back and said they should go back to studying for awhie.  "Awhile" never lasted long, but that wasn't the point; by the time the kisses resumed, it had always been gone - but not this time.  
  
The concept of hardness wasn't foreign to him, of course; he had his own erections, whether he wanted them or not, and he knew logically that if sex between two men was going to be...well, anything really, it would happen.  All of that made sense to him.  Yet somehow the sensation brought their plans for the evening into stark, unavoidable reality:  
  
They were going to have sex tonight.  
  
He knew giving it so much thought wasn't helping his anxiety - he did.  And he wanted, he  _really_  did.  But he wasn't sure he had ever thought quite so much about sex - usually he had been too drunk to think much at all, really, and that had been part of the point.  It had been about  _not_  thinking, Not dwelling.  Not analyzing.  Not letting himself be reminded of how hard it was to want the things he was meant to want and how impossible it was to get rid of the feelings he wasn't supposed to feel.  Not letting his mind drift to dreams he couldn't get rid of...  
  
Blaine snapped back into the present as he felt Peter pull away slightly.  "Okay, my dear boy?" he asked gently.  Blaine wasn't sure he trusted the words to come out as anything but a rush of incomprehensible worrying, so he offered the best smile he could manage and nodded.  Peter frowned.  "Blaine, I'm serious."  
  
He didn't know what it was about Peter's use of his name, but it made his stomach fill with butterflies.  He drew in a deep breath and replied as evenly as he could, "I'm okay."  
  
"We can stop any time."  
  
"I don't want to stop," Blaine blurted out, and Peter's concerned expression melted into a proud smile.  
  
"Good," he replied, nudging Blaine's hair back into place with his fingertips.  "Let me know if that changes.  But I'm happy to keep going as long as you're enjoying yourself."  
  
Blaine nodded and managed to agree, "Keep going."  
  
Peter grinned and reached down to unbutton his own pants, and Blaine peeled his undershirt up and over his head, letting it drop onto the floor beside the bed.  Peter paused a moment, looking over him, then practically dove in for a hard kiss.  Blaine pressed up into the kiss, feeling a bit more confident and absolutely certain that pretending he knew what he was doing would help.  
  
Besides, it wasn’t as though he hadn’t thought about it before in great detail – at least whatever detail he could cobble together from horror stories and his very,  _very_  active imagination.  And from the feel of things, his body knew what he was doing even if he didn’t.  Peter pressed down against him, groan muffled against Blaine’s mouth, as his hand slipped once more down Blaine’s side and came to rest on his hip.  Blaine gasped softly at the pressure his boyfriend’s weight caused and shifted, moaning as he was reminded of the miracle of friction – how could he have forgotten how good this felt?  
  
Had it felt this good before?  With girls half-drunk – or drunk and then some – wriggling against him almost aimlessly?  Because he liked to think if it had felt this good, he would have remembered it; instead what he remembered was an intense physical and emotional relief when he was done.  
  
But what if the relief had been the good part?  What if the only part he had liked about sex was the emotional part and getting to feel normal?  Because from what little he could piece together from four years of fog masquerading as memories, that was the majority of what he could feel.  What if, without the affirmation of normalcy and wellness, it didn’t feel nearly as good? Especially since first times were notoriously bad, and even though he hadn’t been a virgin in a very long time, he had definitely never done this before.  
  
Unless he got to be the person who did the boy role.  Not that either of them wasn’t a boy, but- it would just be easier to know what he was doing and how everything worked.  
  
But how did picking that role work?  Did one person get it automatically?  Or did he earn it somehow, like by having the most experience or being ready for it first?  It would make sense if that were how things worked out – because the one…he didn’t even know what to call it, but the one who was doing the other role…just had to lie there and enjoy things, so they didn’t have to be as hard or ready, right?  Besides, Peter should thank him for that because then it wouldn’t really be like first-time sex, since he would at least have some relevant experience.  He could be ready first, especially if it meant getting to do the part he was comfortable with and understood.  They were both in just their pants, and Peter seemed to content to keep kissing for awhile longer, which gave him the perfect angle.  
  
Unfortunately his physical angle proved slightly less perfect; he reached down to unfasten his trousers, mouth kept blissfully occupied by Peter, then began to try to remove the last of his clothes. Grasping the waistband just above the front pockets, Blaine shoved down but succeeded only in scooting his trousers halfway down the front of his underwear, which remained firmly in place. He groaned in frustration, which caused Peter to kiss him harder, hips grinding down against his. Blaine's fingers tightened around the fabric as the twill waistband dragged across his erection. He hurried to try to shimmy out of his pants again, but the side-to-side shifting didn't do much to get his pants down; it did, however, vary pressure across the front of his briefs. He let out a moan that expressed more than one type of frustration, and that seemed to get Peter's attention.  
  
"What- oh," Peter chuckled. The laugh sounded breathier and lower than usual, and Blaine could hardly see the celery green irises around enormous dark pupils. "Here - I'll do mine too. We can move, you know,"he teased and slid back, kneeling on the bed and taking the opportunity to start to remove his own pants. His trousers slipped down easily, dark blue boxers tented in front but convering most of the skin between waist and knee. Peter started to sit back to tug his pants all the way off, and Blaine scurried to catch up.  
  
No - he couldn't be first, not if- "Wait," Blaine requested hurriedly. He had to give Peter credit for freezing immediately and managing to keep a non-irritated expression.  
  
"Everything okay?" he asked, voice even as he watched Blaine with obvious concern.  
  
"Of course," Blaine replied, taking advantage of Peter's stillness to try to gain the upper hand again. He sat up and tugged off one pantleg.  
  
"Then why...?" Peter asked slowly, not understanding. What was there to be confused by, Blaine wondered. He had obviously done this before, so wouldn't he know-  
  
...Uh oh. Had he gotten that wrong? Was that not how things worked? "Isn't that how you know who does what?" When Peter stared at him in confusion, eyebrows knitted together, Blaine added, "Whoever's ready first?"  
  
Peter's confused expression was confirmation enough; the riotous laughter was just salt in the wound. "Oh- Oh my dear boy..."  
  
"It wasn't that ridiculous," Blaine protested sullenly.  
  
"Yes, it was," Peter replie, shaking his head as he tried to calm his laughter. "Where on earth did you hear such a thing?"  
  
"Then how do people decide?"  
  
Peter stopped, as though it had never occurred to him that Blaine would ask. "Well...it depends, really."  
  
"Depends on what?"  
  
"On the men involved. On personal preferences."  
  
"Really?" Blaine asked. That seemed far too simple. When Peter nodded, he ventured, "Then I'd like to be the one... _doing_."  
  
Peter stilled, regarding Blaine from beneath furrowed brows. After a long moment, he replied evenly, "Not this time, my boy."  
  
"Why not?" Blaine demanded. First he had made a fool of himself with a theory that was apparently ridiculous, but now because of that he wasn't allowed to do the only part of this that felt remotely familiar?  
  
"Why do you want to?" Peter asked, the tone of voice that had been reassuringly calm before now bordering on patronizing.  
  
"Didn't you say it was about personal preference?"  
  
"Sometimes," Peter replied evenly. After a pause, he ventured, "You know, for some men it's a point of pride, that they do unto other men but never allow other men to do unto them. But I suspect that's not why."  
  
Blaine shook his head. "I...don't know what I'm doing," he admitted.  
  
Peter nodded in understanding. "I can appreciate that."  
  
"So I can-"  
  
"No," Peter replied. "For two reasons. First, I personally believe every man should be penetrated first so he understands the sensations."  
  
Blaine wasn't so sure about that reason, but he guessed it did make sense from Peter's perspective. He couldn't really do the same thing with a girl, where he couldn't have any way of knowing how things felt except by paying attention to her reaction. With another man, there was a lot a guy could learn from his lover. He smiled a little, nodding that he understood, then asked, "What's the second reason?"  
  
PEter hesitated a moment to formulate his explanation, then replied, "This is new for you."  
  
"Isn't that the first reason?"  
  
"Not entirely. I don't want you to get scared and revert back to old...habits. Old fantasies. Because you and I both know they would work, but I refuse to lie there while you pretend I'm a girl you're only pretending to like. We can stop any time - say the word and we'll leave this for another day - but if you're doing this, I need to know that you know exactly what's going on and aren't trying to fake your way through by convincing yourself I'm something that I'm not. I have too much respect for both of us and would hope that you do as well." He paused, then added, "Besides - they don't work the same way, so please don't try."  
  
"Isn't it kind of hard for you to know that?" Blaine asked. Anyone who had made peace with himself so early couldn't have gone very far with a girl, and Blaine liked to think that their honesty was mutual and he would have heard that story at one time or another, if such a tale existed. Peter managed a playful huff, which made Blaine grin. Feeling like he was once more on a bit more solid footing, he added, "And I wasn't half bad at it."  
  
Peter burst out laughing and sat back enough to pat Blaine's knee. "Oh, my dear boy - drunkenly bumping against the nearest wet surface, then flopping around for awhile, isn't my idea of a good time." Blaine wanted to sulk, but Peter's smile was too fond to take the snide comment ot heart. "Come now - lie back," he urged gently.  
  
Blaine wanted to protest, but Peter was...well, he was charming, yes, but he was also probably right. Blaine wasn't sure exactly what differences there were, but maybe it was a good idea to let the person who  _did_  know the difference lead. If he didn't know what to do, he doubted Peter would just leave him there, flopping in the wind. So if there wasn't some good reason to insist...he laid back and offered Peter a faint smile. The look his boyfriend gave him in return was immensely reassuring.  
  
He would be fine. Peter would make sure of it.  
  
Peter tugged off the remaining leg of Blaine's pants and shed his own, tugging off his boxers while he was up. Blaine glanced down, stealing a peek guiltily; he had no idea how Peter matched up against men as a whole, but he liked what he saw. He swallowed hard, mouth suddenly dry, and shifted a little as fire-hot pinpricks washed over him and settled in his cheeks and the pit of his stomach...and lower, where his briefs were uncomfortably tight, cloth tugging against him with every breath. By the time Peter's fingers touched his waistband, he didn't think he was capable of taking in oxygen at all. "May I?" he asked, meeting Blaine's eyes.  
  
"Okay," Blaine murmured, practically holding his breath as Peter carefully lowered the fabric. When he looked up again, Blaine saw something confusingly familiar in Peter's eyes. He had seen girls look at him like that before, and seen them look at other Mendicants like that, and Fitz stared at the redheaded physics major like that. It looked like how he had felt when he saw Kurt but had been too terrified to let anyone know. Or the feeling that was taking up permanent residence in his gut - downright... _lustful_.  
  
He had known it felt good to be the center of attention and have the entire room singing and dancing along with his performance. He knew from experience he loved feeling girls stare at him and wanting to kiss him, too. But the sensation of his boyfriend being unable to stop looking at him - unable to stop wanting him - left all other forms of attention in the dust.  
  
Peter knelt on the bed and nudged Blaine's knees up and apart then scooted closer, hand brushing casually up and down the inside of his thigh. Blaine guessed he was probably trying to relax him, but the warmth of Peter's hand skimming close to the junction of thigh and hip was almost an unfair tease - and the longer he paused, the more cruel it felt. "Please, can we- ah. Please?" Blaine requested, hoping he didn't sound half as desperate as he was starting to feel.  
  
Peter's eyes widened in surprise, and his lips curled into a smile that was just the tiniest bit smug. "Further?" he teased, as though there were any ambiguity, and Blaine nodded. He trusted Peter completely, but maybe putting him in charge hadn't been the best idea if it would send him on a power trip like this. Peter nudged his legs a bit further apart, and Blaine shivered at the cool air against an area that wasn't used to such exposure. It was hard not to feel like he was on display for the world to see like this, legs apart, hips tilted, completely nude...  
  
It was just the two of them. They were safe.  _He_ was safe - and loved, and under the watchful eye of someone who would absolutely not stand for his arrest, which was something he wouldn't need to worry about anyway because who in the world would come into his room and report him? This was okay - vulnerability aside.  
  
Peter reached over and picked up the tube of hand lotion Blaine kept on his nightstand. He frowned at it, mumbled something about how he supposed it would have to do. After a moment he sniffed at it and seemed relieved that it didn't have a strong scent. "The most important thing to remember," he told Blaine as he squeezed a dollop onto his fingers, "is to relax. That makes everything easier - and more fun." Blaine nodded, even as his stomach was in knots. Peter leaned down to kiss him - just a soft peck, then glanced down toward-  
  
Blaine gasped as he felt a finger trailing between his buttcheeks; the lotion was cold and thick, squishy and everything in him was fighting the urge to demand what Peter thought he was doing or why this was meant to be fun. He cried out as the tip of Peter's finger pressed inside him. What was that? Who did that voluntarily? Why-  
  
"Shh - relax, my boy, remember?" Peter soothed. Shifting his weight, he brought his other hand to Blaine's erection and closed his fingers around it, then pumped twice. Blaine had done the same motion more times than any well-bred young man could admit to with a clear conscience, but he had never felt anything like  _that_. He moaned, head falling back, legs relaxing a bit as his brain was too busy focusing on the unexpected pleasure. "That's it - exactly," Peter smiled as he slipped the finger further in. It didn't feel quite as uncomfortable, though it was still just an odd sensation...but a terrifying thought occurred to hinm.  
  
The discomfort and fullness were coming from something the size of a finger. Peter... _wasn't_.  
  
"Will it even fit?" he blurted out, and Peter paused, biting his lip, clearly trying not to laugh. Blaine did appreciate his sensitivity, but it wasn't wan answer. "Because that finger seems small but-"  
  
"We can stop anytime," he repeated.  
  
"I know that, I just- how does anyone  _do_  that?"  
  
Peter chuckled gently and leaned in to kiss him lightly. "Patience, my boy. And relaxing. I am by no mens an expert, but it's never been an insurmountable problem."  
  
Blaine was skeptical, but he chose to believe the boy. He nodded, groaning quietly as Peter began to move the digit inside him - more a poking motion than a thrust, really, but it felt...interesting. Not bad, anyway. After a few moments, Peter grasped his cock again, and Blaine let out a startled moan as he felt himself stretch and another finger pressed in.  
  
"Too much?" Peter asked.  
  
"How much- um. How much more is there?" Blaine asked, trying to find a polite way to ask whether he should demure now or keep going the rest of the short distance.  
  
"Get used to these, then we'll try," Peter suggested. He sounded confident that would be enough, which Blaine guessed meant that experience had gone well in that regard. He certainly hoped so.  
  
"Okay," he agreed. "Keep going."  
  
Peter nodded and began to move the two fingers, keeping them pressed tightly together as he twisted and poked and di something that created a stretching sensation around the rim - not enough to indicate a third finger but enough to notice and kind of enjoy it. He groaned softly, and Peter repeated the motion then pulled his fingers out. Blaine hadn't expected to feel empty - or for emptiness to feel like such a bad thing, like something he wanted to correct as quickly as possible. He heard the lotion cap twist open, then the squelching sound of rubbing it onto flesh. The warmth of Peter's body slithered up over him, and Blaine sighed softly in contentment as Peter kissed him. It felt right: tender, close, intimate, strong- "Ready?" Peter murmured against his lips. He nodded slightly and resumed kissing for a moment-  
  
The sudden pressure was intense and not in a good way. He let out a startled yelp, eyes wide with panic as every bit of him wanted this - whatever it purported to be - to  _stop_ , to stop before he died or ripped in two or-  
  
"Shh - relax, Blaine, you're almost there," Peter murmured, trying to encourage him, but what use was encouragement when some kind of medieval impalement torture was going on? "Push out a little."  
  
Of all the impractical and probably impossible advice Peter could give... "I can't," he panted.  
  
"Yes you can," Peter replied, breath almost quivering as he tried to stay still partway inside Blaine. Blaine knew he might have appreciated that more if he hadn't been in the midst of being ripped apart. "The hard part's almost over. Push out a little and it'll get better - I promise you, my boy."  
  
He had no idea how he was meant to push out when he was so  _full_ , and it sounded like something that could go really wrong and get...disgusting...but he didn't have any better ideas, and Peter had done this before. He drew in a deep breath and tried to do what Peter told him, whimpering as he felt his boyfriend push forward- and then suddenly the pressure was gone. He still felt full, stretched beyond what he knew could be done, but it wasn't uncomfortable. Strange but not unpleasant. "I...wow," he murmured, eyes wide, breathing hard. Peter beamed down at him, panting a little as he tried to hold very still, weight supported on his arms- he looked amazing from this angle.   
  
"Okay?" Peter checked. When Blaine nodded, Peter leaned down to kiss him lightly; after a moment, he shifted to lay forward against him, wrapping his arms around Blaine's shoulders, holding him close. He could feel the rise and fall of his lover's chest against his own, the warmth of Peter's skin covering almost every inch of him...like every bit of him was surrounded and filled by the young man and he swallowed hard, gazing up at him, not sure how to express the feeling swelling in his chest. Everything was so close, so connected, so intense- was it always like this? Was this what sex was  _meant_  to be and he'd missed out for sake of cheap immitations all these years? Or was it only because he had spent so long thinking this should feel like a descent into madness that the way Peter's biceps held him securely felt like the most glorious thing in the entire world? He wanted to stay like this forever, this close and  _safe_.  
  
Peter gazed down at him, nose only a fraction of an inch away from Blaine's, and offered a shy, adoring smile that looked as though he was so intensely, achingly  _proud_ \- he wanted Peter to be, so badly... He swallowed hard, feeling his eyes start to well up, and Peter stroked the ends of his hair lightly. He didn't know how Peter was staying still for so long, and he whispered, "You can move. I'm okay."  
  
He was a thousand times better than okay and felt like he might fall apart at any moment, but he didn't have a succinct way of explaining that or telling Peter what it meant for sex.   
  
Peter leaned in to kiss him lightly, then began to thrust into him. Blaine gasped as he felt the motion inside him for the first time, arms coming up to grasp the back of Peter's shoulders. He could feel the muscles moving beneath his fingers as Peter leaned forward, kissing his neck as he found a slow, comfortable pace. The groans from his boyfriend's mouth rumbled against his skin, and Blaine held him closer; he kept forgetting to breathe, meaning to inhale but gasping instead, and every inch of his skin felt like it was vibrating with each thrust. Peter's torso was firm against his, hips raising up and pressing down against his with every thrust, grinding against Blaine's erection, and he groaned at the friction, instinctively trying to rock up in return to keep the sensation. Peter gasped and moaned loudly against Blaine's ear, rocking down harder.   
  
It lasted forever but not nearly long enough. Peter finished first, filling him and clutching him close, and the intense pleasure Blaine saw on his face...how could anything that looked like that be bad? How could anything so beautiful as his lover's eyes closed and jaw slack in pleasure be sick? How in the world could this be anything but wonderful?  
  
Peter gazed down at him, panting - eyes hazy, smile lopsided and tired; all dapper pretense was gone, leaving just a blissful, adoring boy. After a moment to get his thoughts in order, he shifted his weight to one side, and Blaine whimpered inadvertently at the loss of bodily contact. Peter chuckled softly, low in his throat, reaching down between them to wrap his hand around Blaine's erection. He gasped softly, pressing up into his hand, and after a few seconds felt like his body might come apart at any moment. He had had sex plenty of times and satisfied himself beyond that, but this- His orgasm hit him hard and he arched off the bed, moaning loudly as he spilled over Peter's hand and both pairs of hips.  
  
He felt empty suddenly and let out a whine, reaching for contact. Peter grinned and laid on his side, pulling Blaine against him, holding him close. He could feel the darkness of sleep already tugging at him, but he didn't want to lose the moment - he didn't want to miss any of this, to wake up and have to return to a world outside his room that, while good, couldn't compare to  _this_. As he tried to jolt himself awake, he felt Peter's warm breath against his ear.  
  
"Get some rest, my dear, dear boy," he murmured, pride dripping from his voice. "You were perfect."  
  
Beaming, Blaine tucked himself back against Peter as close as he could, then drifted almost immediately into a deep, exhausted sleep.  
  
* * * * *  
  
Blaine blinked against the morning light streaming through the window opposite his bed. He yawned and stretched, brushing against warm,smooth flesh-  
  
His eyes widened. He hadn't felt that when he woke up in so long- He turned over, beaming as he saw Peter lying on the other half of his bed. He was on his stomach, face buried in the pillow, hair sticking out at all angles, almost entirely uncovered by the blanket. Blaine smiled softly as he got up, tucking his boyfriend in, then tugged on his underwear and padded into the kitchen to put on tea for Peter and coffee for himself.   
  
It had actually happened, and he felt...okay. Better than okay, really. He had- he almost giggled just thinking about it, halfway giddy at the memories of the night before. He didn't think he had ever felt this way the morning after sex, and he wasn't sure but he was pretty certain it wasn't just because for the first time he could remember he didn't feel like he might throw up at any moment. Usually the morning after, the closest to emotion he was able to unearth from the grips of his hangover was something akin to gratitude that he was normal, but gazing from the kitchen wall over to where his boyfriend slept...  
  
This was better than normal. This was magical.  
  
Peter sat up, eyes bleary with sleep and looking completely adorable. He blinked twice, rubbed his eyes like a child, then smiled softly as he saw Blaine. "You didn't run," he murmured, sounding more surprised than Blaine would have liked...but it was probably reasonable under the circumstances, all things considered.   
  
The first thing that occurred to him to say wasn't that it was his apartment so running away would be hard; instead, the explanation was more poetic and made less sense to anyone but them. "It was the most beautiful jazz...ever," he stated. He could tell by the way Peter beamed that he understood exactly how he felt.


	19. Chapter 19

Blaine stretched slowly as he awoke. The bed beneath him was softer than he was used to, the sheet over him a little less stiff...but of all the times he had risen from a bed that was not his own, this was the first occasion on which he didn't have to think too hard to recall the previous night and figure out where he might be. It wasn't so hard to guess, especially not with the familiar scent that surrounded him. He drew in a deep breath, inhaling the combination of spicy aftershave and soap-clean skin that emminated from the pillows, the blankets, the boy still asleep beside him with his very quiet snoring... it smelled homey and  _safe_.  
  
A person could get used to this. He smiled faintly to himself and rolled onto his side, cuddling gently against Peter's side. He had errands to run, he knew that; he needed to return books to the library and pick up a few things from the music shop downtown and drop his registration for the Selective Service exam in the first mailbox he saw and he was meant to meet up with Ted for lunch to talk about the best way to present the group with songs by female artists...but nothing seemed more pressing than feeling the slow rise and fall of his boyfriend's chest.  
  
Peter stirred, snuffling as he tried to swallow mid-snore, and Blaine beamed as he felt a strong arm wrap around his back, tugging him close for a moment. He rested his head on Peter's bare chest and sighed contentedly, happy to wait and just enjoy these few moments to himself.  
  
"Good morning, my boy."  
  
There was something about Peter's voice first thing in the morning that got to him. He wasn't sure whether it was because it something so intimate, the sort of thing no one but him got to hear, or whether it had something to do with the fact that Peter sounded like he was less cloaked in bravado then. They probably went hand-in-hand, vulnerability and all that, but for whatever reason the four simple words felt like something so much more special when they were like this than when Peter greeted him the same way between classes.  
  
Though that had been happening less frequently lately. The ability to wake up together made such a greeting on-campus redundant and kind of unnecessary.  
  
"Good morning," Blaine replied quietly, beaming. He had never imagined this could feel half as good as it did. If he were being even a little bit honest with himself, he had never imagined he could lie this close to a boy - let alone unclothed as he was - and feel anything but regret and disgust. He was pretty sure he had never felt anything but queasy or vaguely triumphant when he awoke beside a girl. But this...  
  
And to think he had worried that homosexuals would feel lonely forever. How wrong he had been.  
  
"Did you sleep well?" Peter stretched a little, careful not to jostle the young man lying against his chest, and settled again with his arm around Blaine and his hand in his lover's hair, tugging absently at the unruly curls that were still half-stuck with yesterday's product.   
  
"Very," Blaine confirmed. "You?"  
  
"Mm - perfect." Peter's sigh of contentment rumbled in his chest, and Blaine cuddled just a little closer. "Plans for the day?"  
  
"A few errands, lunch with Ted, and class."  
  
"Time for breakfast?"  
  
"Absolutely," Blaine confirmed. If he were going to have to leave the bed eventually, at the very least he could enjoy breakfast with his boyfriend before he ventured out into the world, especially since it turned out that Peter had a hidden talent for cooking eggs so they were the perfect texture and doneness. Blaine had never been able to get his to come out right, but somehow Peter's breakfast skills were - like so many other things about him - absolutely flawless.  
  
Peter leaned in for a quick kiss before gently shifting Blaine out of his arms and back onto the pillows. Blaine was content to watch - he wasn't sure he would ever get used to the idea of just watching an attractive man walk around naked, even just for the few steps to the door where his robe hung. Just the sight of that much skin still made him feel a little scandalous, but in an electric way; just because he wasn't going to a sanitarium didn't mean it was something he should just be allowed to  _see_  like that, and it made him blush just a little and feel very adult all at the same time. "I'll be back in a few minutes. Choice of breakfast music?" he asked as he shrugged into his comfortable-looking robe and tied the belt loosely at his waist.   
  
Blaine rolled over, savouring the last few minutes in Peter's bed before he had to rise as well. "Have you heard the new Bob Dylan album?"  
  
Peter's eyes widened. "The one that came out last week?"  
  
Blaine nodded. He never would have thought to listen to the singer, but a lot of Peter's friends did, and the music was so  _interesting_ that he got hooked - even if the man's singing voice left something to be desired. "I picked it up the day before yesterday - it's in my bag." He had brought it deliberately, planning on listening the night before, but things had escalated more quickly than he had expected and they never made it to the record player. "You'll probably like side A better, it's more political and message-oriented, but the first song of side B is just...incredible." He didn't know what a tambourine man was meant to be, but the harmony was just unexpected enough to intrigue him, almost as though it were played in one key and sung in another, and he wanted to spend an entire night locked in a practice room to try to dissect it.  
  
Peter grinned and leaned in to kiss him again, a bit longer this time, adding quietly, "Sounds like the perfect morning, my boy. I'll put it on." He turned and left the bedroom, and Blaine stretched out again, allowing himself to just revel in how comfortable he felt. Not just physically - though he wished his bed were this nice - but...everything felt  _right_. He could imagine being like this for years - decades, even, maybe - with a boy who understood him and loved him...they hadn't said it yet, but they both knew it was true.   
  
Kurt had been right after all. There was such a thing as happiness in a life like this. But with Peter there was no risk that it would all turn into an imitation of the life he had run from - no soirees and elaborately-decorated rooms designed to impress friends. Just the two of them in a cozy apartment chock full of books and albums...and bowties. And fedoras. And-  
  
"Blaine?" Peter's voice was just on the edge of panic, and Blaine hopped quickly out of bed, pausing just long enough to pull on his underwear as he dashed to the living room. Was something on fire? He didn't smell smoke- He found Peter standing in the middle of the living room, bag at his feet, envelope clutched in both hands. He was sickly pale, green eyes too bright and much too wide. "When- ah. I...that is, when did you-..." he stuttered, then swallowed hard, adam's apple bobbing, before finally managing, "When did you get something from the Draft Board?"  
  
"What?" Blaine asked, then realized what Peter was holding. "Oh- no. I didn't. It's-"   
  
Before he could explain what the envelope was for, Peter pulled him into a tight hug, breathing a deep sigh of relief. "Oh thank God. Oh- my dear boy. I thought for sure you'd been called up - they're getting too many deferment requests these days and aren't granting them all, and I thought-" He shook his head and squeezed Blaine closer a moment, then released him and offered a faint, almost apologetic smile as though saying he was sorry for being so undignified and scared.   
  
It was unnerving to see Peter genuinely afraid, and Blaine jumped in quickly to explain. "No. Not at all. That's actually why I have to send this in." Peter's eyebrows knitted together in confusion, and he continued, "They've been getting so many deferments, like you said, so they're giving a nationwide exam. People who do well will move further up the draft hierarchy and be less at risk-" His boyfriend's face fell, a mixture of not understanding and disapproving. What was to disapprove of? For that matter, what was there to not understand? "I figure since I'm a graduate student, and on top of it I'm at a really great school with a more rigorous curriculum, it should be extra insurance just in case. Besides, it can't hurt you; they go by a combination of grades and scores, so based on my transcripts alone I should be fine unless they draft a slew of students - and they're not to that point yet, so I'm-"  
  
"Collaborating," Peter filled in. That wasn't remotely what Blaine would have called it, and he wasn't sure why Peter would say- before he could ask, Peter shook his head and turned toward the kitchen, heading in to start breakfast. He seemed to forget he still had the envelope in his hand, and partway across the kitchen he flung it down against the counter in disgust before he began to make coffee.  
  
"Why are you so upset?"  
  
"I thought you of all people would know better," he mumbled. Blaine didn't think he had ever seen anyone pour coffee grounds into a percolator with such force before. "You, who tried to yell at a police officer for raiding a homosexual function. You, who sang 'A Change is Gonna Come' with a group of boys harmonizing behind you.  _You_ -" He made a disgruntled sound and shook his head as he plugged in the coffee pot then pulled the skillet out of the cabinet with a rough jerk. "I expected more from you."  
  
"What do you mean?"   
  
Peter turned to stare at him, incredulous. "You really don't know?" When Blaine shook his head a little, still not sure where he had gone wrong, Peter rolled his eyes and began to explain in what was possibly the most patronizing tone of voice Blaine had ever heard - and that included explanations about The Way The World Works from his father. "You're using the unfairness of the system to your advantage instead of fighting the system itself, my boy. You're making sure someone else is sent to war instead of you."  
  
"That's ridiculous-"  
  
"Is it?" Peter demanded, skillet in his hand as he waited for an answer. "You're taking this exam and betting on the idea that you score well enough because you're intelligent - and we both know that you are. And what you gain is that you move higher on the list, which moves someone else lower."  
  
Blaine guessed that was true, and it made him a bit uneasy. Just because someone didn't do as well on a test as he did didn't mean they should be sent into a war if they didn't believe in it, but there wasn't anything he could do about that...was there? Was he missing some kind of solution he was meant to be able to fight for? "Isn't that true of all deferments?" he asked. "You have one, too, which moved someone else lower on the list. I don't see you volunteering to go instead."  
  
"Of course not," Peter scoffed. "Because this war, my boy, is ridiculous and there is no way that I will participate in anything that involves sending young men from America to slaughter young men in southeast Asia just because our government has an irrational paranoia of all things red."  
  
"But how is that different than what I'm doing?"  
  
"You're participating in their system. They're administering the test. They're deciding who goes and who stays."  
  
"Of course they do," Blaine replied, eyebrows lowering. "Aren't they the ones in charge?"  
  
"Only as long as we allow them to be." Peter set the skillet on the stovetop with a heavy clang and moved to the fridge, tugging out the carton of eggs. "I refuse to let them control who lives and who dies."  
  
That didn't sound quite right - Blaine was pretty sure he couldn't just tell the government they weren't in charge anymore and have that happen. "Don't they do it whether you tell them you approve or not?" he asked, trying not to sound as skeptical as he felt.  
  
"I wouldn't expect you to be so patronizing."  
  
"Well it sounds kind of...overly self-important of you," Blaine replied, choosing to be at least a little diplomatic. "You think what I'm doing is wrong because it means someone who isn't me goes and fights in a war. But you think you can stop the war with your deferment?"  
  
"Of course not. It takes all of us. It takes a collection of people- the young men who are going to have to go fight this war - to stand up and say we won't go. We won't go kill other mothers' sons for no reason. We refuse. It takes us protesting and flat-out refusing."  
  
"And what good are you going to do when they arrest you for all that?" Blaine blurted out. "You don't get to tell the government you call the shots and expect them to take it lightly. They run things. I'm just trying not to get caught up in their anti-communist fervor and wind up as one of the guys they send over there. What's so wrong with that?"  
  
"What's wrong with it is that you're saying the war is okay as long as you're not fighting it."  
  
"That's not at all what I'm saying!" Blaine protested.   
  
"You are," Peter accused, slamming the fridge door closed. "You're fine working within the system as long as it will get you where you need to go."  
  
It wasn't true. He wanted to be able to express all the reasons it wasn't true - to point out that nothing in his life fit neatly within whatever societal 'system' Peter despised; to add that Peter didn't exactly eschew rebellion in his 40-year-old suits and neatly-tied ties and since no one understood why he was such a 20s devotee he wasn't really bucking any kind of system even if he thought he was standing up for things; to assert that he had stuck up for himself in the face of men who wanted to arrest them both and it had been Peter who had pulled him back to keep him from getting handcuffed. But what came out instead was the product of frustration, a petulant, "Would you be happier if I just checked the disqualifying box so they couldn't draft me anyway? But I'm pretty sure even you haven't done that, have you?"  
  
Peter looked stunned first, then torn, and as Blaine realized what he said he wasn't all that surprised. Which, in Peter's mind, was a bigger 'buzz off' to the government: registering for the draft, as required by law, but refusing to go when called; or rendering one's self completely unable to serve by using the law against homosexual service to get out of it? The box was right there on the form...but from the expression on his boyfriend's face, he had never even considered checking it. The consequences were too grave - to get any kind of financial aid or scholarships or jobs now, people were asking for proof of registration for the draft to try to keep the dodgers out of any government benefits. If you had a medical condition that kept you from serving, that was okay as long as you could give them proof...but for this particular so-called affliction...   
  
Not even Peter was quite that bold or brazen, and from the way his eyes were narrowed and jaw set he wasn't too pleased with Blaine pointing that out.   
  
"I'm not about to tell them I'm sick when I'm not," he replied shortly. "You may have believed that once, but I was never that blinded by bullshit."  
  
Blaine wasn't sure which part to be furious about first - the insinuation that he was stupid and less than Peter because he had spent a decade rightly afraid his father would commit him and then give him a full frontal lobotomy, for one - and his fingers clenched into his fists at his sides. "Wow," he managed, voice tight with frustration and betrayal. "When you go in for a low blow..." he shook his head, turning toward the bedroom. He wanted to be anywhere but there - somewhere out and away from the boy he had trusted with everything who had thrown it back in his face over something so  _stupid_.  
  
He hopped into his pants, frustration growing by the moment. How dare he? How dare he say that when he  _knew_  how difficult it had been? And after all the reassurance he had pretended to give, too- Blaine rolled his eyes as he tugged on his shirt and fumbled to buckle it in his haste. What gave him the right to be so smug and superior about evading government rules anyway? He had registered too, hadn't he? So- what, was the rule that a man could sign up because it was required but couldn't participate in the "system" any more than that? He could sign up as long as it meant being able to enroll in school, and he could get a deferment to go to school and keep from being drafted that way, but taking an exam to make sure his deferment continued was a bridge too far? That didn't even make any sense.  
  
He half-stormed back into the living room, grabbing his bag and letting it settle heavily on his shoulder. "Blaine-"  
  
"Don't," he cut Peter off. He had no interest in whatever patronizing explanation the boy could give him, and from the expression on his face he had no intention of apologizing - just trying to explain all the ways he was undeniably right. He jammed his feet into his shoes and started toward the door, then turned back and snatched the envelope off the counter before walking out.  
  
Blaine strode quickly down the sidewalk, his indignance fueling his steps. What kind of distinction of degrees was that anyway? It would be one thing to protest - really protest - and not register or in some other way tell the government where to shove their draft, but what Peter was doing was hardly as revolutionary as he wanted to pretend. For someone who for some reason fancied himself a rum-runner, he was just splitting hairs about what was or wasn't too much blessing by the government.   
  
Not that there weren't problems with the draft. He knew he was lucky to be able to be in school, and plenty of guys didn't have that option. But no matter how the process worked, there would always be someone who wasn't selected and someone who was, and he didn't think there was anything wrong with acknowledging that. Obviously he shouldn't take advantage of something that was blatantly unfair, but if anything this was  _more_  fair: men who were doing well in school should be allowed to stay there, but college couldn't just be somewhere to go to avoid conscription.   
  
And of course he hated that there even  _was_  a draft to worry about, that went without saying, but nothing he did would change that. Nothing Peter could do would make them stop calling young men up and sending them to fight in a war that probably wasn't a good idea in the first place...and participating in part-but-not-all wasn't even taking a principled stand. Certainly not a principled enough stand to merit what he had said.  
  
...Had he actually cursed? Blaine choked on a laugh - that was what he noticed and cared about? Still, hearing the word from Peter's dapper, elegant mouth was new and probably would have been more amusing had it not been for the rest of the sentence.  
  
The moment of something like levity paused his furious pace, and Blaine sighed softly to himself as he looked around, trying to figure out what to do now. He wasn't going to go  _back_  - he wasn't the one who owed an apology, for one - but the last place he wanted to go was home. He would spend the entire time sitting and stewing and going over everything Peter had said, wondering if he really thought Blaine was that stupid- he shook his head. He couldn't go dwell on it. But with no classes until mid-afternoon and not very much open in town at this hour, he wasn't sure what options he had. He didn't feel much like eating, which ruled out any of the diners and breakfast joints nearby. He started down the block toward Spin Me Round, but before he even reached the door he could see several bunches of teenagers milling around - was it their spring break? Some sort of school holiday? He had no idea, but it meant there was no chance he would be able to get a spot in a listening booth. Since he had just bought a few albums a couple days earlier, there weren't any new ones he could browse for, even if he could get past the groups of high school students - almost all of whom were taller than he was.  
  
Blaine turned the corner, starting through the main drag of town, trying to find something - anything, really - that would keep him from having to go home and replay the fight over and over again. He tried window shopping but found it couldn't his interest, then paused outside the movie theater. An usher swept just outside the front door, and he could see the shadow of a figure inside the ticket booth, getting settled in for the day. A movie might be just the thing, he concluded as he dug into his pocket for his wallet and approached the booth. "One, please."  
  
The older gentleman peered at him skeptically. "For what?"  
  
"What's playing?" Blaine asked, realizing he had no idea. There wasn't anything the Mendicants were raving about from last weekend, so he didn't have anything in mind - he'd heard something about a big Bible movie coming out soon, but that wasn't really what he was hoping for, so maybe-  
  
"This early? Sound of Music."  
  
...anything but that.  
  
He had been avoiding the movie the best he could. It was meant to be fantastic, he knew all the critics were giving it high marks, and it had been awhile since he had seen a good musical, because while he liked My Fair Lady well enough and Audrey Hepburn had been adorable in a few of her movies, she was a really horrible choice for Eliza Doolittle. But the last thing he wanted to do while sitting alone in the dark for three and a half hours (who made a three and a half hour movie?) was remember the mistakes he'd made to the soundtrack so many years ago. He really didn't need to be dwelling on his first kiss when he was so angry with his boyfriend, either, especially considering the reasons he had ruined things-  
  
Still, did he want to go home and dwell on the same subjects for four hours instead? At least this way he could be distracted by the Austrian landscape and Christopher Plummer, who wasn't unattractive for someone so much older.  
  
He forced a faint smile and nodded, sliding his money across the counter. The ticket booth attendant raised an eyebrow at him, and Blaine had to wonder if he was wondering what made a college-aged man watch the first movie he could get into at 10 in the morning. He took the ticket as soon as it was within polite reach, then proceeded through the doors and into the lobby where the movie theater was just beginning to stir to life. He passed the concessions stand, tempted to get popcorn because he had skipped breakfast but unwilling to wait while the first batch of the day was popped, then headed into the theater.  
  
The silence of the empty room was oppressive, and Blaine had no doubt that were it not carpeted his footsteps would have echoed loudly through the space. He selected a seat in the dead center of the room and tried not to fidget as he waited. This had been a horrible plan - if the whole point of not going home was to avoid dwelling on things, what good did it do him to sit in a larger empty room where he could worry not only about the fight he and Peter had had but about things he had ruined five years ago? What was he going to do when that song came on - the one about being an ordinary couple? He had thought it sounded so impossible back then; Kurt had thought it sounded like the most wonderful thing in the world, two men being just like any other couple, enjoying each other's company and living a simple, beautiful life together. Now...now he knew better. He knew it was possible, with the right person anyway.  
  
Was Peter the right man? There were moments when it felt like the answer was absolutely yes - where he seemed to understand everything that Blaine felt was crucial, where he could explain things in a way that was helpful, where he was so adorably fond and sweet... but how could the right man say things like that and mean them?   
  
Blaine was grateful when the lights dimmed and the flapping sound of the projector began. The opening shots were spectacular, flying above the Alps, and when the music swelled he felt himself relax in his seat. He didn't remember the Broadway soundtrack by heart, but he was fairly certain they had changed at least this much because he would have remembered such a sweeping opening. Maybe this would be just the thing he needed - production numbers surrounding him had never gone wrong for him before.  
  
For awhile it worked. The nuns' prelude was beautiful, and Maria's hapless attempts to show she knew what she was doing were funny and well-sung, and though he flinched the first time he heard the name "Kurt" - he remembered in retrospect his Kurt mentioning it, but of all the things about that day he recalled, the name of the middle von Trapp child wasn't one of them - he found himself genuinely enjoying the movie.  
  
With one key exception.  
  
He wasn't sure how he had missed that the entire thing was set during World War II, though he guessed it made sense because none of the songs were about the war - or even mentioned them that he could tell - and Kurt had focused mostly on the love story when explaining the album to him, so that the Anschluss was an afterthought at most. If there were a secondary story at all, he had thought it was about teaching the children how to sing and bringing them joy through music - something he completely understood. But then began a long section where music suddenly took a backseat to the Third Reich and Blaine began to wonder if this had been the best movie to come to after all.  
  
Obviously the United States, no matter how much he disagreed with going to war in Southeast Asia, wasn't Nazi Germany. But it was hard not to see Peter's refusal to do anything to help facilitate or legitimize the draft a bit differently while watching Captain von Trapp refuse to serve in the German navy. Nothing he could do himself would stop the Nazis - or the oncoming world war - but he could refuse to participate. He could refuse to be quiet and just accept that his country had been taken over.  
  
And really, that wasn't so hard to understand either. Nothing Blaine said or did could stop the police from being horrible...but he could stand up and say so. He could say he had the right to be himself, to be in love, and to not be afraid - even if it was as formally unrecognized as the war-era state of Austria. Wasn't that what Peter was doing - or at least, how he viewed it? There were so many things they couldn't change or fix, certainly not as two young men, but Peter was drawing a line in the sand to say he wouldn't do something he didn't believe in. He didn't have much of a choice about registering in the first place, Blaine had to admit, certainly not if he wanted to be able to go to school - which for Peter was never about trying to evade the draft but about an insatiable love of knowledge that Blaine really did love...but Peter took the one choice he did have, which was to not let the Selective Service pretend to offer him a liferaft.  
  
Blaine couldn't tell if that was naive or really cynical, but at least it made more sense than it had a few hours ago. And of course it didn't do anything to soothe the sting of what Peter had said about the past, but it did make the first part of the fight feel a little less confusing.  
  
They all had a choice, he realized slowly. All of them, all the time. Did they want to accept things the way they were told it was meant to be done, no matter how awful and backwards and cruel that way might be? Or did they want to, with full knowledge that they themselves could not fix the problem, stand up and say that at the very least they would not continue to perpetuate it? Wasn't that what all the boycotts in the South were about? And they had changed the laws...because when enough people resisted, things could really change. Thousands of people had said they wouldn't sit in the back of the bus, and now they didn't have to; tens of thousands had marched on Selma and had sit-ins, and the President had signed one law last summer and was on track to pass a voting rights law sometime this year.   
  
Hundreds of young men had come through his father's office every year, hundreds and thousands, and that was only one office - he knew there were plenty of others. Too many. What if all of them just stood up and said they wouldn't be treated that way anymore? They might not be able to change what the law said, at least not yet, but- the idea of knowing that others were out there and they weren't sick...that would have meant so much to him growing up. He could have been okay, could have had a shot with Kurt, could have been in love without feeling so awful about it all. And if enough of them took a stand and said they refused to pretend anymore...he couldn't even imagine what they could do.  
  
And if all the students, all the young people...he had no idea how many people there were between 18 and 27 in the country, but he knew it had to be a lot of them - just judging from the number of people at Stanford, or if he took the size of Dalton when he had attended and multiplied it out by the number of schools...if they all stood up and said they wouldn't help the government run the draft, that they wouldn't sit by and take the test and pretend it was fair...  
  
They could do anything. If they stood up for themselves and fought, they could accomplish amazing things - things no one could even imagine yet. No one would have thought a law outlawing discrimination on the basis of race could exist even ten years ago, even after the bus boycotts, but now it was law in every state, in every county, in every backwater town that still referred to him as 'Malay' - the Warblers could go to Nationals now because Baltimore couldn't force them to stay in separate hotels anymore. All because people had refused to accept that the way it had always been done was enough.  
  
"Hey kid - show's over."  
  
A voice startled him, and he blinked; the house lights were up, the credits long since rolled. "Oh- sorry," Blaine managed, head swimming. He gathered his jacket and stood, hurrying out despite the janitor's dirty look.  
  
He had to apologize for- well, part of the fight, anyway. Peter had certainly done his part, too, and that wasn't okay but at least Blaine understood where he had been coming from to get defensive in the first place. And maybe if he could be the bigger man and start the discussion, things could be okay again.  
  
He had lost one love because of stubbornness and an inability to admit his role in things; he wasn't about to do it again.  
  
He decided to go home first to change; he had missed one of his classes and his lunch already, and he doubted he would make it to the other class, but he knew if he went to Peter's and it went well he might not be home again until tomorrow and he really didn't like the idea of wearing the same underwear three days in a row. He fished out his keys, turned the corner, and saw Peter sitting in the hall in front of his door, a small bouquet of red and light blue flowers resting against his chest. "What are you doing here?"  
  
"I came to apologize. Are you okay, my boy? I tried to find you on-campus but Ted said you stood him up - which is unlike you - and I thought something had happened."  
  
"I'm fine," Blaine assured him. "I needed time to think, and the movie was long - just what I needed, but...really long." He paused, glancing down at him. "How long have you been here?"  
  
"Long enough to worry?" Peter offered with a sheepish smile, and Blaine couldn't help but grin, rolling his eyes just a little. "Don't worry, no one saw me - everyone's out this time of day, so you needn't fear-"  
  
"It's okay," Blaine replied, nervous but meaning it. The first part of standing up meant not being afraid of people knowing how you felt, right? "I was actually just changing to come over," he added as he unlocked the door and pushed it open, setting his bag on his desk chair. "I...wanted to apologize."  
  
"My boy, I was the one who was out of line."  
  
Blaine hesitated, but acknowledged, "You were. But...I didn't understand. And now I think I do."  
  
"Really?" Peter looked skeptical as he toed off his shoes, still holding the flowers.  
  
"It's about not doing anything to support something you know is wrong - isn't it?"  
  
Peter's eyes widened in surprise as he began to smile, a mix of pride and relief at being understood. "Yes. Exactly. And while that didn't give me the right to say what I did about your struggles-"  
  
Blaine offered a half-shrug. "It's okay," he replied. It had stung, but Peter knowing it was wrong did help ease the ache for the most part. Besides, was he going to do something silly like throw away an amazing man for one comment flung in anger? Not in a million years. "The flowers are beautiful," he added, reaching to run his finger lightly over the edge of a petal. Peter glanced down as though he had forgotten he was holding them, then smiled shyly. As much as Blaine found the man's bravado and patter charming, he was starting to enjoy seeing this side of him - it was more vulnerable, more human, and just as interesting. He thought a moment, then asked, "Have you eaten yet?"  
  
Peter shook his head. "I was trying to track you down - I should have known when the record store was full that a movie would be the next best place."  
  
"You checked the record store?"  
  
"Of course I did," Peter replied as though it were the most obvious thing in the world. "Where else would you go when you're upset but into music?"  
  
Blaine beamed, all concerns from earlier about Peter not understanding what things meant for him vanishing. "Shall we go get lunch?" he asked, taking the flowers from his boyfriend and moving into the kitchen to get water for them.  
  
"Sounds lovely, my boy." He reached over and gently tugged Blaine into a soft kiss, arms holding Blaine close. Blaine pressed against him, reveling in the tight embrace, then reluctantly pulled back. "After you," he suggested, gesturing toward the door, but Blaine had a better idea.  
  
Holding hands was definitely too far out there to be safe, but there was no reason he couldn't walk comfortably close to his boyfriend so their shoulders brushed every so often. And if people suspected there was something unnatural or funny about that...then so be it.  
  
It was the least he could do.


	20. Chapter 20

By the time the call came, Blaine had to admit he wasn't all that surprised.  
  
"Well, my boy, they've arrested me again - the same jail as last time, you remember the place? I left money for bail beside the tea kettle, plus a little extra so we can go to dinner after if you'd like." A moment of noise, then "Sorry, there's quite a line of us. See you soon!"  
  
Blaine sighed and shook his head as he hung up the phone and closed his book. It could be worse; if they were one of those schools on semesters instead of quarters, he would be in the middle of studying for finals - like last time. Besides, Peter sounded like he was in good spirits, despite his obvious circumstances, which meant the police must not have gotten too rough or hostile. He guessed that meant there were enough students that they were just trying to get everyone under control and didn't have time to show off how tough they were.  
  
He had no idea if that was right or not, but it sounded good in his head. And he did know Peter's degrees of bravado well enough to be able to tell that he was faking enthusiasm, but not so overtly so that he was trying to cover up something being  _really_  wrong.   
  
He picked the phone up again, dialing Janie. She and Peter might have had an arrangement where, should her car go missing, she could just assume it was her friend's doing until proven otherwise, but Blaine always felt awkward when he considered doing the same. No matter how many times Peter assured him that she wouldn't mind - and by now it was many,  _many_  times indeed - it felt a bit too much like stealing for his comfort. He knew Janie somewhat, and he liked her and thought she complemented Peter really well, but he didn't know her well enough to just take her car.  
  
"Hello?"  
  
"Hi - this is Blaine-" he began, but before he could even say his purpose for calling, she cut him off with a quiet laugh.  
  
"He needs you to bail him out?"  
  
Blaine wasn't sure if she just knew Peter that well, or if she knew because it was the only reason Blaine called her except for one time he couldn't find his boyfriend and it turned out Peter was holed up in some reading room way at the back of the second floor of the library that no one realized was open. "Yes. How did you-"  
  
"He told me he was going up there today. And sometime next week, I think, I have it written down. I guess whatever was going on up there, he assumed he'd need picked up both days."  
  
"He did leave bail money," Blaine offered, and he could hear the grin in her voice as she replied.  
  
"Our boy is courteous like that, isn't he?"  
  
 _Our boy_. It wasn't the first time Janie had said it, but it still sent shivers up his spine to hear. She always sounded conspiratorial when she used the phrase, like they were in on a secret, though Blaine knew that couldn't be further from the truth. Peter didn't try to hide him. In fact, he almost seemed to actively try  _not_  to hide him, which was simultaneously terrifying and wonderful. A boy loved him enough to be willing to risk everything for him - his friends, his future job prospects, his freedom (though Peter did swear up and down that no one had been arrested just for being out with a male lover in decades, and Blaine had to admit that he didn't have any evidence to the contrary). It made him almost dizzy with joy and disbelief; that Janie did seem to like him and approve of the relationship made it all the better.  
  
"The car's out front, go ahead and just use Peter's key - and tell him he owes me a tank of gas, he left it almost empty last time," she added, clearly not that angry about the $6 he owed her.   
  
"Do you need it back at any particular time?" he asked. Peter had promised dinner, but if she needed to get somewhere that would take precedence - at least in Blaine's mind.   
  
"Not tonight, I was going to make an early evening of it. Be careful on the drive."  
  
"I will. And thank you," he replied sincerely before hanging up and getting ready. He was pretty sure he remembered how to get there, anyway; he assumed it would be much easier this time, when he wasn't so busy being terrified.  
  
* * * * *  
  
Blaine had no idea why there was an entire plaza devoted to chocolate, but he had to admit he was intrigued as soon as Peter told him there was a place he wanted to try in Ghirardelli Square. Under his boyfriend's direction, he wove his way through the hilly city streets; he was getting somewhat familiar with the parts of the city nearest to Polk and just around the edges of the Tenderloin, but he had never been this far north - or east, he was pretty sure. "Let's see, surely there's a place to park around here somewhere..." Peter mused, tapping his fedora absently against his thigh as he scanned the street for an empty space.   
  
"I don't know, it looks like there are a lot of restaurants up here," Blaine observed as he saw a car pull out and another car snatch up the spot almost out of nowhere.   
  
"Hm, true. But this place is meant to be fantastic, and you've never had fondue before," Peter replied, as though that were in any way relevant to the problem of parking. "You haven't, have you? It's popular enough in some corners of Europe, but it's new to this coast and I doubt..."  
  
"That in Ohio they dip bread in cheese and call it a meal?" Blaine filled in, and Peter grinned.  
  
"It's more than that, my boy, you'll see. It's worth it for the- oh! Right there," he pointed as a car's lights flickered on with the starting of the engine. Blaine applied the brake, waiting for the Corvette to pull out. The car remained in place, most likely while the driver got himself situated or found something in the glove compartment, and after a few moments of silence, Peter said, "You should have come with me today."  
  
"What do you mean?"  
  
"To the protest. You would have loved it - there were hundreds of people there, so many more than anyone expected." Blaine glanced over at his lover; in the uneven illumination of the streetlamp streaming through the windshield, Peter's eyes glimmered excitedly. He had foregone his jacket and tie, opting for an oxford shirt with the top two buttons undone, undershirt almost yellow in this light. His suspenders had some kind of stitched pattern on them that Blaine couldn't identify in the darkness, and Blaine had to admit he was kind of surprised the police hadn't tried to confiscate them. Didn't they take men's belts so they couldn't use them as a weapon? He thought he had seen that on a movie one time.   
  
Maybe it was different when they arrested so many people at once. From what he could tell driving up to the police station, they had certainly brought in a lot of students...but at least a few who seemed older and like they were waiting for rides instead of just traipsing back to campus in groups. Maybe the police didn't take all the same precautions when they had to process so many people at one time...or when the people weren't really  _dangerous_. Criminals were one thing; students protesting and disrupting the peace or something was another and he was pretty sure that even the biggest jerk of a cop wasn't going to treat someone standing up for what they believed in the same way as a guy who stabbed 50 people or something.  
  
He liked to think so, anyway. He knew things didn't always work that way, at least not judging from the way the police treated people they didn't like...but not out here. And either way, Peter looked fine and clearly hadn't regretted what had happened if he was wishing Blaine had been there. "Really?"  
  
"Absolutely, my boy - it was incredible. Hundreds of people shouting that they wouldn't go fight an immoral war. And the  _cards_! Oh, how could I have almost forgotten to tell you about the cards? We- I'll wait until you've parked so I can show you," Peter rambled, grinning. The Corvette's brake lights flickered then dimmed to tail lights as the driver maneuvered out of the spot along the curb, and Blaine pulled forward, really hoping he wouldn't wreck the car that didn't even belong to him. How long had it been since he had parked somewhere? He couldn't even remember - he walked everywhere around campus, and any time they went up into the city Peter usually drove them...and even when he had lived in Ohio he hadn't driven all that much because they couldn't have cars at Dalton and he tried to go home as little as possible so it wasn't even as though he were parking to run errands in Westerville- "What's wrong, my boy?"   
  
"Nothing," he replied quickly. When he could feel Peter's eyes boring into him, clearly not believing him, he offered, "I haven't done this in awhile. I- y'know, I know  _how_ , but I really don't want to ruin her car."  
  
"You won't," Peter assured him. His hand on Blaine's was warm and strong...and distracting, a little, but in a good way. "Just focus."  
  
"Not so easy when you're nearby," Blaine half-joked, and Peter chuckled softly. Drawing in a deep breath, eyes flicking between the rear and side mirrors, he backed carefully toward the curb. Any second he swore he would feel the vehicle crunch into the car behind them or hop onto the sidewalk, but the jolt never came; he pulled forward a little to try to get closer to the curb.   
  
"There you go - you see? You worry about everything, my boy, but in the end you do just fine," Peter praised, squeezing his hand. "Now let's go eat. And you better save room for dessert; everything you can imagine, dipped in chocolate. It's brilliant." He slipped out of the car, waiting on the curb for Blaine to do the same, and Blaine couldn't help but notice just how much younger Peter seemed when he was excited. He was still proper and seemed older - and older-fashioned - than about anyone else Blaine had ever met, but he didn't seem like someone who was infallible, who had seen and done it all. Instead he seemed like an eager, adorable...boy just like him.   
  
Had he caught up to Peter somewhere along the way? Was that why- because he knew he had seen his boyfriend excited about things before, he remembered Peter's beaming smile when they won back in February and how ecstatically proud he had been on New Years and even how satisfied he had seemed the last time Blaine picked him up from jail, but now the expression was different; more transparent. Easier.  
  
Or maybe, Blaine thought as he watched Peter shift and bounce on the balls of his feet, it wasn't about gaining enough experience to be on the same level; maybe it was that all of this was so much less guarded than it had been months ago. Because they were boyfriends now, and he wasn't just some terrified kid, and...and Peter genuinely  _knew_  he could do things now instead of just saying it as a meaningless platitude.  
  
Or maybe the protest had just been that good. Either way, he really liked the way things felt.  
  
He didn't even have time to glance down and check how far from the curb he was before Peter whisked him down the street, around the corner, and up a flight of brick stairs, then into a small, dimly-lit restaurant. The scent of rich, fancy chocolate was almost overpowering, like the time his mother's cook decided to make hand-rolled truffles for a Christmas party and he spent all day wanting desperately to eat them but not being allowed to - very hard for a boy of 7. The carpet beneath his feet was plush, the decor a little overdone as though trying to fashion itself a lounge where the Rat Pack might come after a show if they weren't several hundred miles away. "How many this evening, gentlemen?" asked the neatly-dressed host as he plucked menus from the stand beside the door.  
  
"Two," Peter replied, and though Blaine watched for any sort of reaction from the gentleman he saw none - either the man didn't think anything of two young men dining together without any women or other friends present, or he thought something of it and was polite enough to keep it to himself, and Blaine was...well, he liked the former option better, but the latter was at least better than expected.   
  
The host led them through the dining room, filled with curved banquets finished in black tufted leather. Sconces affixed to the wall illuminated each semi-circle, leaving darker pockets between tables but not so dark that Blaine couldn't see the art deco tiling detail where the end of each banquet came together - diamonds in blues and ivories and silvers, subtle but a nice touch. In the center of each occupied table sat a silver pot atop some kind of tripod-looking structure, sticks rising from the top of the pot at all angles. They arrived at an empty booth near the back, and Peter slid into the booth easily while Blaine sat on the other side. It was easier this way - no chairs to pull out, no-  
  
...No date rules to apply even though, he realized suddenly, that was exactly what this felt like.  
  
That was dumb, Blaine chastised himself. He had been out with Peter a dozen- okay, not quite, but it felt like it - times. They went to the bars together all the time, and sometimes they ate on the way up or back, and they had grabbed lunch together on-campus before when Peter happened to need a break in writing his thesis at the same time that Blaine had a break between classes, but a restaurant with low lights and plush booths felt much different than a sandwich from the cafeteria or a hamburger from the place just off the 101. Those could easily feel like any two friends getting a meal together, the same way he had with plenty of the guys he used to drink with way back when, but surrounded by couples he felt so  _obvious_. What friends came to a place like this for a friendly dinner? Not that it would be a fun place to just hang out with people he liked - and if the smell was anything to go by, he bet Peter was right about the dessert being amazing. But he doubted that Friday and Saturday nights found these booths packed with groups of college-aged buddies dunking bread into cheese and laughing together; it was probably a little more  _romantic_  than that.  
  
It wasn't that he didn't want to be on a date with Peter - he did. He really did. It was just...confusing. How was he supposed to know what rules applied? He had been a really great gentleman when he took girls out - except for maybe the parts when he drank too much - and always made sure to pull out their chairs and pick up the cheques and do things the way he had been taught. How did things work when neither of them were a girl?  
  
And what if someone noticed?  
  
The booth helped obscure them somewhat, but they certainly weren't hidden completely. All the waitstaff could see them, and anyone else who walked past...  
  
But mostly, what if Peter thought he was a really awful date?  
  
Because there was no way Peter would do anything that would get them in trouble - okay, he understood that sounded naive considering he had just picked his boyfriend up from jail, but that was different. Standing up for what a person believed in was different than walking into casual danger, and neither of them was dumb enough to do anything overt in front of a crowd that wasn't like them, so he didn't need to worry. He really doubted there was a secret vice squad that happened upon random restaurants and queried unsuspecting patrons about what they were doing there, so unless the cast of Dragnet was outside waiting for them when they walked to their car they were probably not in too much danger. He hoped not, anyway; but Peter seemed to know everywhere in town and wouldn't take him somewhere dangerous. So that left everything else to worry about.  
  
He looked at the young man perusing the menu with a thoughtful expression. "How much do you have to do tonight?"  
  
"What do you mean?"  
  
"I'd love to do three courses, but if you have homework-"  
  
"Nothing I can't do tomorrow," Blaine replied, more or less honestly. He could catch up, anyway.  
  
Peter lowered the menu, flashing a wide grin. "Excellent."  
  
"What about your work?" He hadn't written a thesis yet, but he was pretty sure that every night Peter swore he would write it and then spent time with him instead. Not that he minded - he loved spending time together - but he wasn't sure if any of it had actually been written.  
  
Peter shook his head. "I assumed I wouldn't be around tonight to work on it and planned accordingly." Blaine wasn't sure he was convinced, and he supposed he must have looked it because Peter laughed softly. "You're in class all day, my boy, I have plenty of time to work and still see you. Don't worry; I'm most of the way through the necessary revisions and then can begin the arduous process of planning my defense. I'm on-track." He dropped his voice slightly and added, eyes sparkling, "But it's sweet of you to worry."  
  
"It's not that I don't trust you-"  
  
"It's okay," Peter assured him. He started to reach for Blaine's hand but thought better of it, the heel of his hand skimming the tabletop instead as he withdrew. "I know you trust me," he stated, meeting Blaine's eyes. Trust felt like such an understatement, but Blaine didn't know of a better word to convey the depth of it, so he simply nodded. Peter offered a faint smile and said, "I know that's big for you. You've come such a long way...and I know it's because you trust me."  
  
Had he? Blaine blinked, glancing around. This was exactly the type of place he would have never known existed six months ago because he had never been north of the airport, and he knew every bar or restaurant that served alcohol in Palo Alto so he assumed he didn't need anywhere else. Who had needed to go that far just for something to eat with beer? Who cared about ambiance when you wouldn't remember it the next day? What was the point of it, except maybe to impress a girl, and the kinds of girls he went after rarely-...  
  
Six months ago, if he'd known this place existed, he would have been here with a girl if he'd been here at all. He never could have sat across from someone he knew to be just like him, dangerously sick as he thought they were, without being terrified of his symptoms flaring up. Beyond even someone seeing them, he would have been too scared of what someone like Peter would do to him - would make him do, would make him  _want_...he could never have done this back then. Not for all the money in the world. He would have been here with a girl who was perfectly nice, perfectly funny, perfectly perfect, and felt so wrong that he was practically falling down by the time they left just so he could feel normal - as though being such a mess could ever be normal - and yet here he was. Here he was with an amazing, intelligent, sweet, adoring young man who- who wore fedoras to jail and stood up for who he was and was so completely-  
  
Blaine swallowed hard, trying not to let the overwhelming feeling subsume him, and he felt Peter's hand nudge his lightly, reassuring - because that was the type of boy Peter was. He tried to help, and he wanted to be sure Blaine was okay. When was the last time someone had even noticed how miserable he was before Peter? Who besides Peter and Kurt had ever tried to help him out of his self-imposed darkness?  
  
What if he hadn't met him? What if Peter hadn't decided to go to a party for a department he wasn't even part of? What if someone else had found him passed out a couple weeks later? What if Blaine had managed to do what he had wanted so desperately last fall - to stop running into the boy, to forget all about him, to never have to see the attractive eccentric again? Would he still be a fall-down mess? Or worse - would he be locked in a hospital somewhere, trying desperately to change but feeling utterly hopeless to ever get rid of his supposed sickness?  
  
Instead he was on a date with a boy in a strange part of San Francisco, and he was utterly unafraid of anything except being too inexperienced to give the young man everything he deserved in a boyfriend.  
  
He met Peter's gaze, wanting to convey how much had changed, how much better off he knew he was, how immeasurably better he felt now than he had. Words could never be enough- Peter simply offered a tender smile. "I'm so proud of you, my boy," he whispered.  
  
Apparently words could be more than too much.  
  
Blaine swallowed again, trying to keep tears from making their way forward- who in the world had ever been  _proud_  of him before? - and Peter seemed to understand, retreating from sentimentality. "Now. What are your feelings on Fribourg? Because while most of the cheese pot are Gruyere, this half-and-half sounds quite good."  
  
Blaine laughed softly, letting the tension and overwhelming emotion release a little, head bobbing down. "I don't have any particular opinions about cheese," he replied, smiling faintly at the oddity of the sentence.  
  
"Then here - start looking at desserts," Peter urged, handing him the menu. "Even as good as it sounds, you'll be amazed by how incredible it is."  
  
Blaine didn't think anything could be more true.  
  
* * * * *  
  
Blaine grinned as he tugged open the door of the practice room where the Mendicants had gathered. "Ready, guys?" he asked. He had been looking forward to this all week. More than any other performance all year - except maybe the first one, and possibly the one at the showcase just because of the message involved - this one felt momentous. The faces weren't as bright as usual on performance days; as Blaine looked around the room, he saw a mix of uncertainty, cautious disapproval... "Hey, guys, it's gonna be great," he assured them, being extra peppy to hopefully bring the energy up.  
  
"Look, Blaine, it's not that we don't trust you," Fitz began.  
  
"'Cause we do, man, you're really good at this, and you're a great frontman and all," Tim agreed.  
  
"But...the song..." Jerry shifted, mouth kind of tugging to one side as his eyebrows lowered.  
  
"Not the arrangement," Fitz jumped in. "It  _sounds_  great, we're just..."  
  
"Not girls," Tommy stated flatly, arms folded across his chest.   
  
Blaine sighed, nodding. He had thought this might come up again. It had taken almost an entire rehearsal to convince them to even look at the arrangement, and another two hours to get them into the song because every time they would start to sound good someone would question the wisdom of the performance again and Blaine would have to wrangle them again. He felt a little bad doing it just because he liked to be the leader who shepherded the group into doing something they could all enjoy, but this was too important to him to take a back seat. He needed to conquer this particular frontier, and he needed to sing what he felt but couldn't possibly say...and the guys needed to face their fear of singing girl songs anyway. At least this one they didn't have to change anything around to make it okay to sing in public because it didn't say "boy" or "guy" or "him" anywhere in it.   
  
"Girls love the Toys," he stated.  
  
"Doesn't mean they'll love  _us_  as the Toys," Jerry replied.  
  
Blaine glanced over to Ted for support, but the boy simply shrugged and gave him a look that clearly said "You're on your own, leader." It wasn't too surprising, Blaine guessed, since Ted had been telling him for months that if he was going to be the actual leader he needed to stop worrying so much about whether people liked him all the time. Sometimes leading the group meant he had to make decisions that would be good for them, and this was one of those times. "Do you trust me?" he asked.  
  
There was silence for a long moment, since apparently that hadn't been a question any of them were expecting. A few shifted and shuffled a little, uncomfortable with what he had asked, and finally it was Fitz who replied, "Yeah. We trust you, Blaine."  
  
"Then let's try this once," he suggested. "If it doesn't work, I'll never make you sing another song by girls again - and don't worry, I'm sure the girls watching us won't remember this enough to hold it against us if they don't like it. But the group sounded  _really_  great on Tuesday, and I honestly think they'll like us even better. I asked some girls yesterday what they thought, and they didn't think there was anything wrong with it."  
  
That part was kind of a lie. He had asked Janie because she was the only girl he knew well enough to really trust her answer...but she also knew about him and Peter, which made her atypical, and she approved of the relationship which made her downright rare. But it seemed to reassure at least a few of the guys, so he was glad he could say it.   
  
"I wouldn't do this if I thought it would hurt us," he stated, and he saw a few of the guys nod. They did trust him, and he marveled at the fact not for the first time; they knew he wouldn't lead them astray, even if this performance was in part about his own need to express something. He hesitated a moment, then ventured, "So...are we ready to go?"  
  
Triumphant, Blaine led his band of followers across campus, the bounce in his step increasing as they approached the archway. He could see an audience waiting to form already - girls, some of them with boyfriends they had dragged along, hung out nearby, eyeing the arch every few moments to see whether anything was starting just yet. He couldn't imagine the boyfriends would be too happy, not the way these guys performed and got the girls' attention. Then again, if some of the boys wanted to join the Mendicants next year, it was about time to start thinking about that - wasn't it? Now that he knew he would be around and sort-of in charge next year, he should start getting things organized so they could come back even stronger next fall. It would be great to get some new guys involved.   
  
Assuming he didn't destroy their whole reputation with this one song.   
  
He drew in a deep breath and bounced a couple times on his toes to calm the nerves, trying to channel them into energy. Music could never be wrong or destructive - it could only create; it was like love that way, he thought to himself with a sappy smile. Even if it was something new, it could never be bad.  
  
He led the guys to their usual place, and as the group arranged themselves behind him, he watched the lurkers create a semi-circle in front of them. More would fill in once they started singing - they tended to create enough noise and spectacle to draw an audience...and he was pretty sure they wouldn't lose it even though it wasn't the type of song the group usually did. They hadn't lost any fans after singing Sam Cooke, anyway, which wasn't exactly their wheelhouse. He closed his eyes a moment, bringing himself into performance mode, then turned to give the pitch. The sound from the pitchpipe echoed softly in the archway, then reverberated through the group as the guys hummed along.   
  
They would help carry him. They were right there behind him - and this was important. It needed said.  
  
A lot more than this needed said, really, but it was the best he could do and he hoped it would be enough.  
  
Ted counted out the tempo and the group [began](http://youtu.be/_muziTEnNWs), the dramatic introduction filling the arches and filtering out into the courtyard. Blaine could see people trying to identify the song, the first few notes not easy to place, and he watched nervously for a reaction once they realized what the performance would be...and who usually sang it. As they got to the more recognizable notes, he could see a few grins and nods - and no signs of a grimmace or mass exile. So far so good.  
  
 _How gentle is the rain  
That falls softly on the meadow?  
Birds, high up in the tree  
Serenade the flower with their melody_  
  
He had spent quite awhile trying to find just the right song to express how he felt, because for once it wasn't an easy thing to decipher. The song, rather - emotions were almost never easy to figure out, but usually he could pick the song that matched it without any trouble. Now, though...most songs he tried were too pleading. They wanted so much more than they had - they craved love, wanted someone to pay attention to them, wanted a lover to be kind, wanted someone to become a boyfriend or girlfriend, but how could anyone want anything more than what he had? How could he possibly ask for more than an incredible boyfriend who loved him and treated him more wonderfully than he had ever imagined? What else could he even think about wanting?  
  
Aside from being able to declare his happiness to the world, that was. But that was definitely a bridge too far. In front of all of campus, and the guys who treated him so well and trusted him? Not in a million years. That just would never be an option. But at least if he could sing something that showed how happy he was...and if Peter came, which he usually did unless he lost track of time, then he would know. He would see how great Blaine felt and know he was the reason for it, and that would at least convey what Blaine couldn't find the words for. Which meant he really just hoped Peter showed up.  
  
 _Oh see there beyond the hill  
The bright colours of the rainbow  
Some magic from above  
Made this day for us  
Just to fall in love_  
  
He could imagine them on a picnic together like this - just the two of them, grassy hills, and open sky, where no one could see them so they could touch and kiss as much as they wanted. That kind of freedom- even though they couldn't do that, it was how he felt when they were together. Like he could do anything, be who he was, just be  _free_ -  
  
He beamed as he saw a [bowler hat](http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_b8QEOIc5Eg0/SPY94FyqKsI/AAAAAAAAA2g/fawRJxAK7_I/s320/bowler+hat.jpg) bobbing above the growing crowd. He hadn't seen that particular cap before but he could guess whose head it adorned. His chest ached, so full of emotion and gratitude and love that he swore if it got any more intense it would burst like an overinflated balloon, and he sang all the harder to try to get out everything inside him. He had to sing it because otherwise he would explode and might say something he regretted...or just be too unfocused to be worth much of anything to anyone around him.   
  
 _Now I belong to you  
From this day until forever  
So love me tenderly  
And I'll give ot you every part of me_  
  
He caught sight of Peter's grin, wide and proud as ever, and Blaine wasn't sure he had ever felt so jubilant in his life, so light on his feet, so completely right. That boy loved him - that one right there, the one with the gorgeous eyes and the adoring expression and the mental card catalog of every book ever featuring, referencing, or skirting around a homosexual character. The one who had pulled him out of a drunken stupor and taught him so much and still loved him despite knowing everything that was wrong with him, every flaw and fear and moment of self-loathing...that boy right there, that incredible young man, loved  _him_. Honestly, how could there be a song about wanting anything that could apply to him? How could any of the broken hearts or unquenched desires compare in the least to the depth of what he felt?   
  
He wished he could really sing it to him - to pull him up onstage and proclaim to everyone that  _this_  was the reason he was able to perform like this, to feel this way - this man, right here, who had been more patient than Blaine or anyone else had any right to ask, who had taken care of him when he was a mess and carried him home and cleaned up after him and helped so much- who took him out to expensive dinners at new restaurants and ordered his favourite kind of Chinese food when he had to study, who hummed bits of jazz melodies while he highlighted his notes but swore up and down he didn't sing, who practically needed an entire room for his bowties and hats and suspenders and wingtips...this was the boy who made him feel like he could do anything.  
  
He couldn't, of course. He knew he couldn't.  _They_  couldn't. But he could sing in Peter's direction and make sure the boy he loved knew it.  
  
 _Oh, don't ever make me cry  
Through long, lonely nights without you  
Be always true to me  
Keep this day in your heart eternally_  
  
Peter placed his hand over his heart, meeting Blaine's eyes with his own watery expression, and Blaine had to focus hard to keep his mind on the music as they entered the bridge. He had brought it back to its classical roots to appease some of the more traditional Mendicants, hoping that the acapella homage to Bach would add something a little less...Supremes-like to the number. Unfortunately, it did mean that during the most difficult part of the music, he was staring the boy he loved who looked deeply moved by the entire display, which did nothing to help his concentation level. Clearly he understood what Blaine was trying to say, and he felt the same, and somehow that only  _increased_  the pressure in his chest, to the point where it made his eyes well up even more than at dinner the night they had fondue and Peter said he was proud.   
  
If singing a girl song was a potential threat to their credibility with girls, as the rest of the group maintained, Blaine was sure that tearing up in the middle of the performance really wouldn't help. He flashed the best smile he could at Peter then forced his gaze elsewhere just long enough to throw himself back into the performance - as a put-together musician instead of a lovestruck boy who was about to melt at his boyfriend's smile.  
  
It didn't last, though; he kept sneaking glances back at his boyfriend who, standing almost smack in the middle of the group, had to be blocking at least a dozen people's view thanks to his height and his hat...but he wouldn't move. He wanted to watch Blaine and have the best vantage point, and nothing was about to stop him.  
  
 _Someday we shall return  
To this place upon the meadow  
We'll walk out in the rain  
Hear the birds above singing once again  
Oh you hold me in your arms  
And say once again you love me  
And, if your love is true  
Everything will be just as wonderful_  
  
He could imagine having everything with Peter. He could picture it all in a way he had never been able to make out beyond a foggy sense of things he didn't have - a house, a family, an enormous library with one wall of shelves devoted entirely to albums...it would be ornate but warm, he was certain of it; for the first time, those two didn't see mutually exclusive. They would wake in the mornings in the perfect bed, and after a quick shared breakfast Peter would go to whichever college was lucky enough to have him teaching there, and he would head over to a high school where he could make sure the music students he taught knew that there was nothing wrong with them or how they felt or what songs they liked.   
  
He had tried to picture a future before, he had tried so hard - when Kurt had insisted, and for five years with girls as he attempted in vain to make any of it feel the way he wanted his life to be, but now... Maybe it really did just take the right person. Maybe it was just about understanding how it felt to be in love.  
  
...He had been before, he knew that, but in realizing it too late he had missed this sensation and been left only with the agony and mourning of a love gone by. This was much sweeter.   
  
 _You'll hold me in your arms  
And say once again you love me  
And, if your love if true,  
Everything will be just as wonderful_  
  
He liked to think Kurt would be proud of him for this. Of all the people he had ever met, that boy was the one person who really understood how any feeling in the universe could be summed up by a song. And he hoped-...the idea of Kurt with someone else, someone who wasn't him, made him ache and yearn and wish so acutely, but...he hoped Kurt had found what he dreamed of. He hoped the boy he had been too afraid to love had found someone who understood just how amazing he was and treated him accordingly. He knew Kurt was doing something amazing in New York because there was nothing that could stop him from getting what he wanted, and he...he really,  _really_  hoped Kurt had his apartment with the dinner parties and the evenings by the record player.   
  
Kurt deserved that. He deserved everything. He deserved, certainly, to be as happy as Blaine was now.  
  
Though he would have been happier if he could let go of the regret just a little, to be glad for how far he had come and let himself love without guilt. He didn't know why he couldn't let the memories go, as painful and unfortunate as they were. Maybe at least that way it would keep him from making the same mistake again - though he had no idea how he could possibly make the same mistake with Peter around. Peter wouldn't let him run, just flat out wouldn't let him. Would chase him down and make him work his way through his fears.  
  
And sure, maybe if things had been reversed, if he had met Peter first and been able to be secure in himself and accept everything, and  _then_  met Kurt- maybe things would have been different. He could imagine that clearly. But...they hadn't, and this was how things were. More importantly, things were good - they were better than good. Nothing could be better than this. Nothing in the world. The girls were swaying and grinning and mouthing along as they watched the boys, so clearly the Mendicants wouldn't mind doing this again, and Blaine didn't see a single guy snickering about their choice in music, and in the center of it all was his boyfriend - his bowtie-wearing, bowler-derby-clad, unfailingly patient boyfriend beaming at him, as jubilant and proud as ever.  
  
And that was certainly a reason to celebrate.  
  
 _You'll hold me in your arms_  
And say once again you love me  
And, if your love is true,  
Everything will be just as wonderful


	21. Chapter 21

The mild breeze swishing across campus did little to lessen the blazing heat of the midday sun. It helped a bit as Blaine approached the ceremony, but by the time he was seated the array of warm bodies blocked all cross-wind relief. He wished whoever had organized this particular ceremony would have been able to secure one of the auditoriums...though, he realized, that might be worse - so many people packed into a room with not enough fans? He shifted on his folding chair, wondering if another department was lucky enough to have a shady spot to sit for the next several hours, but a quick glance upward answered that question: At 11:30, he couldn't think of a single courtyard, amphitheater, or grove on or near campus that would offer a respite.   
  
Blaine fiddled with the buttons of his shirt cuff, wishing he could have worn a short-sleeved shirt instead. At least the women in his row seemed to be comfortable, arms exposed to what little cooling breeze passed through the crowd instead of trapped beneath more conventional shirtsleeves. Sandwiched between a proud, plump woman in a floral-printed, cap-sleeved dress who was surely one of the graduates' mothers, and a bored-looking teenager who was most likely someone's little sister, he felt awkward and apart as he glanced at the rows of families on either side of him. Even so, there was no way he was leaving.  
  
Peter had been cryptic about why his family wasn't coming in for graduation weekend, waving it off as "other obligations, my boy" and "nothing especially serious but still that which cannot be postponed." Despite his blase attitude, it was hard to imagine that his boyfriend wasn't at least a little hurt by it - no matter how much he didn't like his own parents sometimes, it would still sting if they chose not to come to his graduation next summer. They probably would show up, even if his mother's proud smile looked exactly the same as her bored smile, her pleased smile, her drunken smile, and every other muted, forced display of pseudo-happiness he had seen from her, and even if his father spent the entire weekend clearly disapproving of his career path. That Peter's parents couldn't even be bothered to muster up that level of support made him uneasy and sad. Wistful. He had seen how hard Peter had worked - even if he had done his best to put aside work most evenings so they could spend time together - and he knew how excited the young man was for this. He had witnessed firsthand the final push for his dissertation defense...it had been the one and only time his boyfriend had seemed nervous. It would be unthinkable to not go show his support.  
  
Besides, he  _wanted_  to go cheer Peter on. Heat or no heat, sandwiched between families, it didn't matter.   
  
He sat up a little taller on his folding chair, trying to peer over the heads of the well-wishers in front of him as he attempted to find Peter. Blaine instinctively scanned the line of students waiting to process for a fedora or driving cap, then shook his head to himself with a faint grin. No, even the most eccentric boy on campus couldn't get out of wearing the standard graduation regalia. Blaine didn't envy anyone stuck wearing black robes on a day like today; what little he remembered from his college graduation the year before involved being way too hot.  
  
And a bunch of guys sneaking in a flask, which they passed among themselves through most of the ceremony - to celebrate. And to entertain themselves through what seemed like hours of speakers and far too many graduates making their way across the makeshift stage.  
  
Had that only been a year ago? Goofing off with guys he knew from house parties and trying miserably to pick up girls, forcing his way through a miserable family dinner filled with subtle barbs from his father and empty pride from his mother, then going out after and...he honestly didn't remember what that night had held. He was sure he'd had fun and probably spent the entire next day sleeping it off between bouts of nausea, but anything beyond that was nothing but a blur.  
  
He would remember his ceremony next year, he thought with a proud smile as he crossed his legs, sitting up taller still. Next year, they would be back here - but that time, he would be standing over behind the makeshift stage sweltering in a robe and Peter would be sitting out among the cheerful throng to praise him. He didn't know what the next year might bring, but he was absolutely certain that in exactly 12 months they would be right back in this spot...well, okay, over a little bit because he was pretty sure the education graduates had their ceremony somewhere else, maybe the oak groves? Anyway. Right back here, as proud and accomplished as ever.  
  
With all the changes the year had brought, he couldn't wait to find out what would come next. What could be better than this? Better than having a handsome, passionate, kind, terrifically smart boyfriend? Better than having a great school with courses he loved? Better than knowing that there was a whole year of singing with the Mendicants to look forward to, come fall?  
  
The soon-to-be-graduates processed in, led by the doctoral candidates. In their sweeping black robes with velvet trim down the front and on the sleeves, they managed to retain some amount of dignity even with a velvet tam on their heads - unlike the Masters' candidates, who looked like serious gentlemen in ridiculous costumes, robe sleeves dangling behind them, or the Bachelors' candidates in all their youthful enthusiasm and alcohol with mortarboard hats already askew. When the line moved, it became easy to find his boyfriend in the line: Peter's gait was strong, proud, his jaw jutted up and out just slightly while an impish smile played at the corners of his lips. Even the hat that looked like it belonged on Galileo or someone managed to look right instead of silly on him.  
  
Was it wrong to find him so attractive in something so strange? He guessed not - confidence was something he liked, now that it didn't scare him so much...and Peter had that in spades, especially today.  
  
Blaine let his mind wander as the graduates sat and the ceremony began. He never understood why there had to be so many speakers at events like this; he could appreciate pomp and circumstance as much as anyone, and he certainly had enough experience with formality that he understood when it meant something to the people participating - the Warblers had had plenty of rituals, only some of which was he ashamed of now. But unlike those, where he could take pride in being part of a long line of brothers in song who had participated, ceremonies like this always seemed to be more about imparting wisdom to a crowd of people who didn't want to hear it. Everyone there fell into two groups: those waiting eagerly to be hooded and experience the moment that all of their hard work became official, and those waiting eagerly to take pictures of it all. No one in either category cared what life lessons the associate dean wanted to impart...certainly not while the sun beamed down on them.  
  
He shifted in his seat, finding just the right angle to get a perfect sightline past a half-dozen heads to the young man he was there to see. Peter's eyebrows were slightly raised in feigned interest, which almost made Blaine laugh because it was such a quintessentially  _Peter_  expression. Regalia or not, there was no denying exactly who his boyfriend was. He loved that about him so much... there was no one else in that throng who was remotely like Peter, and his boyfriend wore that like a badge of honour. That took so much more strength than Blaine could ever even hope to have. A lack of shame was one thing, and that had been hard enough in coming; pride in standing out so completely and being so true to one's self was another matter entirely.  
  
Even so, Blaine couldn't help but feel in a way like he was graduating, too. Not just because someone he was so close to was receiving his degree - by that logic, every parent on a folding chair across campus was graduating. No, it was more that...he had learned more in the past year than he could have ever imagined. If - as the droning speaker suggested - graduation was about evaluating and appreciating the old and embracing a new chapter...then that had been what his entire year had been working toward. He had come into the year so afraid, so willfully blind and- and  _ignorant_. But now...thanks to a great teacher...he knew so much better.   
  
He didn't think there could be a person on campus who had learned more in the past 9 months than he had.  
  
He remembered his first year at Dalton feeling as though a person could never learn half as much as the school demanded. His public school had been perfectly good, but the rigors of the elite academy had felt so overwhelming at first that he had sworn he would bring his parents nothing but disappointment there. The panic had lasted only the first couple weeks, until he got into the swing of things, and by the time the year was out he felt as though he had learned more at 14 than in the previous 13 years combined. Now again, the pride in having moved so far forward in such a short time returned with one key difference: At 14, everything had been tempered by the terrible secret that left his stomach queasy all the time.   
  
Today he felt light, easy, nothing but excited. And the future was bright - full of possibilities instead of the ever-narrowing tunnel he had seen before. No, his parents wouldn't approve; not of him, not of what he wanted to do with his life, not of his school or his friends and certainly not of Peter, but he didn't approve of them either. He wanted to; if there were a world in which his parents  _could_ approve, he would embrace it. But absent his father performing a lobotomy on himself, Blaine was pretty sure that he was better off making do with the knowledge that, though his parents weren't proud of him, other people were. People whose opinion and knowledge he valued a lot more than the robots who ruled his childhood home, anyway.  
  
People much smarter than his father.  
  
The graduates rose and stood in place, filing row by row toward the stage. The woman beside him reached into her purse and pulled out her Kodak. Why hadn't he thought to borrow someone's camera to capture this moment? He wasn't sure who even had one - no one he knew of off-hand in the Mendicants, anyway. He sat up a little taller, trying to catch his boyfriend's gaze between the oversized head of the man in front of him and the tuft of bobbed hair puffing out from beneath the cap of the female graduate in front of Peter.  
  
Though the crowd had been asked to hold their applause until all graduates had received their awards, each name was followed by smatterings of applause - polite and appreciative from most of the audience, enthusiastic and pointed from the graduate's family and friends. Stuck in the middle of a sea of cheering, beaming parents with cameras popping up above the head-line to get a better picture, Blaine shifted back and forth as he tried to be sure he had the perfect place to see. In reality, he needn't have worried; Peter ascended the stairs onto the temporary stairs, standing even taller than usual with puffed-up pride, and Blaine couldn't take his eyes off the young man who had changed his life so drastically. Peter took his position in front of the older gentleman who had previously been announced as the head of the department and. He was only a bit taller than the department head, but after a moment of unintended silence Peter ducked with an impish grin, knees and back bending forward. The gentleman offered a shake of his head, as if to gripe that these kids got taller every year, then carefully lowered the white satin hood over Peter's head.  
  
Blaine wasn't sure how his chest didn't explode from the immense wave of pride that washed over him.   
  
Peter's eyes scanned the crowd, seeming to look for Blaine, and just when he was debating whether it would draw too much attention to him - to them - if he gave a bit of a wave, their eyes locked. Peter's smile turned beaming, eyes softening in a moment of appreciation. If he could have spoken then, Blaine swore he would have asked, "Can you believe I did it, my boy?" - as though there were any doubt he would. Blaine beamed back at him and placed his hand over his chest - half to be sure his heart didn't burst through, and half to show him... _something_. He didn't know what exactly, but he needed to be sure the young man he loved knew- and understood just how much- and just how  _proud_  he was.  
  
Peter swallowed hard, lips tightening and curling for a moment, and he gave a tiny nod. He knew. He understood exactly what this year had been to both of them, and he was completely aware that he wasn't the only one who had achieved something in the past 9 months.  
  
He straightened, then walked to the other side of the stage to shake a half-dozen hands; Blaine's eyes didn't leave him until he was off-stage and filing back into his row to allow other students to have their moment.  
  
They would be back in a year, Blaine thought to himself in awe as he finally sat back in his seat, legs and wrists crossed in a way he would have fought to correct months ago. Next year, it would be his turn, and Peter would sit in the audience among parents and siblings and cheer for him so loudly and be so proud of him that both their faces ached from smiling. And they would be proud when Blaine got his first teaching job, and when Peter was published for the first time, and when they got tenure in what would feel like a thousand years...  
  
He didn't regret forgetting a camera. There was no way a photograph could ever capture the moment half as well as his memory.  
  
* * * * *  
  
Peter hadn't believed him.  
  
"My dear boy - how on earth would it be possible for you to be 24, nearly 25, and have never seen the ocean?"  
  
Blaine had tried to point out that there wasn't much ocean to be found in Westerville, Ohio, and that his parents were too midwestern to have a house on the Cape or the Vineyard.  
  
"But you've been out here for five years!" had come his reply, which Blaine had to admit did sound kind of reasonable. Of course, without access to a car before he'd met Peter - well, before he'd met Janie - and considering he had rarely gone very far from campus until the previous year, he wasn't sure what part of the admission could possibly be all that shocking.   
  
In any event, Peter had set to planning a remedy immediately.  
  
"Well, Baker has a nice view - the bridge and all - but I'm afraid I would either scare you off or make it too easy for you to choose another man," he had mused, winking at Blaine on the last bit, though he wasn't sure what about Baker Beach would be scary. "Besides, it has rip tides and I want you to be able to actually  _feel_  the water, at least a little. Could do Carmel-by-the-Sea, which I've heard is gorgeous, or spend the day in Monterey...of course, there's not much to do besides lay in the sun, and my skin would thank me if we avoid that..." Blaine couldn't picture Peter lying around in a bathing suit - modern or otherwise - but found himself captivated by the thought of that much skin exposed anywhere outside the bedroom. The slope of his neck into his shoulder, the lean muscles of his torso, the dusting of light brown hair across his chest, the pale skin of his thighs peeking out from beneath a pair of boxer-style swim shorts? Or, in the more likely event that he had an uncomfortable knitted outfit that seemed 10 pounds too heavy and 50 years too old, the stretch of low armholes across his boyfriend's broad chest, the close fit over his hips-   
  
"Aha! Yes. That's what we'll do," Peter had declared, interrupting Blaine's immodest thoughts. "You'll love it."  
  
"I'm. Do what?" he stammered, wishing he hadn't been caught so off-guard.  
  
"You'll see," Peter had replied cryptically with a grin.  
  
Repeated attempts to figure out where they were going had yielded nothing. He knew it was a beach somewhere within a day's drive, because Peter told him he would need his swimsuit and a towel but no extra changes of clothes. Even then, as Blaine watched out the passenger's side window, he had no idea where they might end up. He guessed it didn't matter since he was still going to get to spend a day at the beach with the boy he loved more than anything. Still, the narrow highway, with its thick lining of trees and sharp switchbacks, didn't look like what he expected a beach road to look like at all.   
  
"Are you sure we're not heading further into the mountains?"   
  
"Through the mountains," Peter corrected with a sly smile, proud of himself. "Small ones, just the edge of them. We'll be there soon - at least, I think we will." He reached down to retrieve a small slip of paper on which he had written the directions. "From what I can tell, anyway. Patience, my dear boy. We'll have you at the ocean in no time." He flashed a winning smile in Blaine's direction, and any urge to ask more questions was quelled. After a few more minutes Peter turned onto another road - one that looked at least mildly more like it led to civilization. Evergreens and hills began to give way to palm trees and an array of streets with small, taffy-coloured cottages evenly spaced along each block.   
  
The scent hit him suddenly. As Peter paused for a stop sign, the smell of something fresh wafted on the cool cross-breeze - light, pleasant, salty, with something almost like plants or flowers but not floral. Floral was what his mother wore, heavy and artificial with the sharp undertone like rubbing alcohol.   
  
Peter drew in a deep breath and let it out with a long, contented sigh. "Different than the Channel, but it'll do," he observed.   
  
"What is that?"  
  
"Sea breeze. We're getting close."  
  
"It's amazing. Kind of like..."  
  
"Like freedom?" Peter half-teased and half-agreed, grinning over at him. "I wish I knew someone with a convertible. Something tells me that would make things even better. Oh well; this isn't so bad, is it?" He pulled through the intersection, and Blaine resumed watching out the window. Activity increased as they approached the destination - Young couples on bicycles, groups of teenage girls in sundresses looking straight out of Gidget, families with children lugging beach bags and towels, convertibles stuffed with high school boys trying to look tough and relaxed at the same time to impress any girls that walked by.   
  
They turned left, and Blaine found himself staring at strips of light brown, leading from sidewalk to walkway to beach until finally stopping at the ocean. The deep blue looked even darker at midday, contrasting against the white-gold glow of sunlight atop each ripple and wave. Just beyond the palm trees that lined the street figures dotted the landscape, and Blaine found himself wondering how he could have not known this place even existed. Peter was right: he had been only an hour away for five years, how did he not know anyone who had at least come down here for a bonfire or party or something? Though no one he knew would want to drive all the way down that highway while they were drunk, certainly not at 4 in the morning as they worked their way back from a party on the beach.  
  
Peter turned a final time, pulling into a mostly-full parking lot. As Blaine stepped out of the car, he shielded his eyes against the glare of the sun. It was just strong enough to counteract the gentle breeze and leave his skin feeling warmed but not  _warm_. Just beyond the parking lot stood a [long building](http://memories.beachboardwalk.com/sites/memories/files/new1/185712_10150186450393378_8237850_n.jpg) - red-roofed in a style more familiar to New England than to California, stretching at least the length of a couple city blocks. Beyond it, he could see the silhouette of a ferris wheel turning slowly and the elegant curves of a roller coaster jutting up above the skyline. There was a distant roar that seemed to come from the other side of the building, a combination of waves and conversations, punctuated by a thunderous  _whoosh_  and shrill screams as the roller coaster cars descended the first hill. "Where is this?" he asked, unable to stop himself from smiling.   
  
"Santa Cruz," Peter replied. He pronounced it in an accent somewhere between proper Spanish and clipped British, adjusting his driving cap. "Do you like it, my boy?" he added, just a bit nervous. Blaine couldn't imagine why - he wasn't sure he could imagine a more fun place to spend his first day on the beach. The atmosphere was intensely upbeat, bustling with people and bursting with energy, and the sensation of levity was as immediate as it was palpable. He wanted to run down the boardwalk and let himself flop back on the soft white sand (that would probably be uncomfortably hot) and just take in everything.   
  
He couldn't remember the last time he had felt so eager. It wasn't the sort of thing he'd been allowed, even as a child - maybe  _especially_  as a child - and though the boys at Dalton and Stanford were a lot of fun, he wasn't sure he had ever felt this sort of active jubilance before. It was like wanting to hop up on the car and sing and dance and just  _live_...but for once in his life, he thought as he inhaled a deep breath of salty sea breeze, he could just feel it without a song if he wanted.   
  
"Yeah," he replied, returning the grin, and Peter beamed. "It's perfect."  
  
* * * * *  
  
By the time the sun set, Blaine wasn't sure he had ever been so exhausted and invigorated at the same time. Sitting on his beach towel, Peter sprawled beside him in an old-fashioned and yet very flattering [bathing suit](http://farm3.staticflickr.com/2787/4347935085_6a9ca8f7a7.jpg). Earlier, when the late afternoon rays had beaten down on them, he had unfastened the tank top portion - who knew that bathing suits had zipped at one point? - and padded out to the water's edge. He had looked like something out of an exercise magazine - the shorts created a perfect kite shape of his waist, hips, and legs, all of which looked that much more trim thanks to the width of his shoulders...Blaine had been careful not to ogle him  _too_  much, but he wasn't afraid to steal a peek or two. Now, though, in the cooler air of early evening, Peter's shirt stretched across his chest. Arm outstretched, he held an old paperback in his hand - something in Latin Blaine couldn't make out - but mostly stared up at the sky with such intense concentration that he wondered if Peter might be trying to count the stars.  
  
He could hear [music](http://youtu.be/EPEqRMVnZNU) drifting down from the boardwalk, even over the noise of the rides. The crowds of midday had died down a little, and though there were still plenty of people on the beach each group could have just enough space to create the illusion of privacy. Blaine laid back on his elbows, gazing out at the water.   
  
It was hard to fathom just how large the ocean was. He had seen lakes before, and the San Francisco Bay thanks to trips up to Berkeley to bail Peter out of jail, but he could always see the other side of those. Standing on the shore, it was easy to look across and see precisely where the water ended. He could see exactly where, if he were to set out in a boat, he would land. The Pacific Ocean wasn't like that at all; from where he sat, he could see a small breaking wall over to his left to protect the boats harboured here, but other than that there was no boundary. No end. Set out from here and a person could end up all the way in Asia.  
  
The Philippines were in this same ocean. Where his father's family had come from was practically a million miles away - and it was already tomorrow there - but it was all the same Pacific.   
  
He wondered what they were like there. Were they all desperate to fit in, like his father? Or did they all fit in because they weren't different? If they were all Pinoys, they probably didn't have to try half as hard. Maybe if his father had stayed...or maybe if his father went back. Blaine almost laughed at the idea of his father, who he rarely saw wearing anything but a suit, stepping off the plane in Manila...or what he imagined Manila looked like, anyway. Really it probably didn't look quite so much like Hawaii, but he didn't have any better picture to go off of. The man who couldn't help but be stiff and tight-lipped would never fit in somewhere tropical like that...would he?  
  
Probably not, he realized, and for the first time he almost felt sad for his father. If he went back, he would probably be seen as strange regardless and have to force himself to change to adapt to local customs and expectations, just as much as in Ohio. Even if Blaine didn't know what those customs might be...he was sure they had them there - everywhere did. His father's desperate need to fit in would crop up anywhere the man went, unless he happened to be lucky enough to find somewhere that fit his natural tendencies. (Blaine wondered with a sulking roll of his eyes if his father even had natural tendencies anymore or if he had erased them all through the force of will.) No matter where he went, he would always have to change to avoid being an outcast.  
  
And that was why he tried to save his patients by changing them.  
  
He wasn't sure why it had taken him so long to see, but once he did it seemed like the most obvious conclusion in the world. For so long his father's job had seemed terrifying - taking young men's brains apart - and later had just seemed cruel - changing who men were because it wasn't acceptable enough yet. But that was where the crux lie: it was about changing them to be something acceptable, but it was never intended as cruelty...was it? His father wasn't cold and unfeeling; he thought he was helping. Shoving pills at his wife to calm her outbursts - that was helping too, to him, wasn't it? There was no pill the man could take, no shocks he could administer himself, nothing in the world he could do to make himself something else. His faults were permanent, immutable as anything in the world, and he had spent so many years trying to minimize them that when he came upon someone whose faults he thought he could fix, someone whose deficiencies didn't have to be permanent, whose ills could be cured...  
  
He was wrong. He was so very,  _very_  wrong; Blaine knew that now. He couldn't change any more than his father could, but he had one advantage over the man he had despised for so long:   
  
He didn't want to.  
  
He had spent the day splashing in the waves with a boy, feeling like an overgrown child as they dove and played tag. He had screamed his lungs out on the Giant Dipper and laughed as Peter squeaked in surprise at each turn of the [Wild Mouse](http://memories.beachboardwalk.com/sites/memories/files/styles/post_new1/public/new1/277495_10150390300413378_623137_o.jpg?itok=KzXroIaI) and giggled while trying to stay on the spinning disk in the funhouse even as he spun off the slippery wood every time. Nothing he had done had been dignified enough for either of his parents, and it was in the wrong state, and he had done it all with the man he loved more than anything - and there was no way he would rather have spent the day.   
  
His father, meanwhile, had watched every word he said, every gesture he made, for so long that he no longer had to think about it; it was automatic to be fake now, to do everything artificially, to sit across from his wife who was practically a robot...and, to his father, that was the best world he could hope for. His wife wasn't upset. His house was perfect. His practice was successful, hidden behind a proper New England-sounding name on the door. That was all he would ever have, and he had fooled himself into thinking it was all there was.  
  
His father thought that, if he could just help those poor men avoid feeling as empty and conflicted as he did, it would be doing them a service. He couldn't change himself, but he could change the young men who struggled so hard with their 'illness', and if he could treat them... It was beyond misguided, verging on disgusting, but it was the man's best attempt at showing someone mercy.   
  
It was hard to hate his father then. It was hard to do much of anything but stare out at the vast emptiness of the ocean and listen to the Beach Boys sing about how wouldn't it be nice and wish the world was different...for both their sakes.  
  
There were unfair things; the world wasn't right yet. He wanted to be able to curl up on Peter's chest the way a girl down the beach was doing with her boyfriend. He wanted to be able to hold his hand where people could see, to tell people about the amazing man who thought he was worth loving instead of brushing off inquiries about his personal life with a vague lie about seeing several girls but none seriously.   
  
But mostly he wanted people like his father to understand that there was so much more out there. For both of them.


	22. Chapter 22

Blaine could barely contain his excitement as he bounded up the walk toward Peter's. He clutched the [tickets](http://i.ebayimg.com/t/The-Beatles-1965-Concert-Ticket-Cow-Palace-San-Francisco-CA-August-31-1965-/00/s/MTMyM1gxNjAw/%24\(KGrHqRHJBoE-dcbeDZUBPtHVbOLP!~~60_1.JPG) tighter in his fist - there was no way he was going to risk losing them to the wind, not the way he had rushed out to get them. He had planned on sending away for them the same way he had for the Beach Boys when they had come to Sacramento two summers ago, but there had never been fistfights over the last few tickets to see the Beach Boys. The Beatles, on the other hand... in Newcastle there had been a melee, and they had sold out every stadium they played in, and he had been too afraid of missing the best concert of the year to leave it to chance. What if, even though he sent in his order form first, it ended up at the bottom of the pile - or lost on the floor of some mailroom somewhere? How was he going to be able to explain to students in the future that he hadn't gotten to see the best band of all time because a postal clerk had lost his order form behind a cabinet?  
  
The ticket line had been a little intense, but the girls had been mostly pretty nice. At least no one had thrown any punches - he guessed he would have expected British teenagers to be a little more civilized than their American counterparts, but apparently not. There had been a lot of high-pitched screaming and squealing, though. Still, in his hand he held two tickets to what he was sure would be the first of dozens of amazing shows he would see the Fab Four perform.  
  
He couldn't wait to share the good news...and convince his boyfriend to go. Peter could be a little set in his ways when it came to his music - a little too obsessed with jazz and classical and something people could dance the Charleston to and a little too dismissive of anything popular - but he knew his boyfriend's softspot for anything British would work to his advantage here. After all, was Peter really going to be short-sighted enough to love Dusty Springfield but hate the Beatles based only on the fact that more Americans knew who the Beatles were? Surely someone as tolerant as Peter could come up with a better reason than that - or admit the foursome's songs were catchy and that he would have a great time at the concert.  
  
Blaine was pretty sure his powers of persuasion, combined with his argument toward tolerance and rationality and artistic appreciation, would win in the end. Was Peter really going to turn down Beatles tickets on some kind of moral grounds? He really didn't think so.  
  
With a spring in his step, Blaine bounded up the walk toward Peter's apartment. The concert was going to be amazing - and with his boyfriend by his side, what could be better? They were really great tickets, too - right down front, worth every penny of the $14 he had spent on them. And because it was for the matinee, he was pretty sure the band wouldn't even be hoarse from trying to sing louder than the screaming girls yet - plus it would mean he and Peter could grab an early dinner up in San Francisco before heading home for the night. He was sure his boyfriend had plenty of places yet to take him - every time they were north of Redwood City Peter managed to find some excuse to take them further north, always to a different eatery with amazing food Blaine had never even thought of eating. Sometimes they meandered to one of the bars in Polk Gulch after, spent some time enjoying the knowledge that they weren't alone, but more often it was just a comfortable dinner where no one hassled them followed by a contentedly-quiet drive home.  
  
He couldn't think of a better way to spend the last weekend before school.  
  
He rapped on the door, bouncing on the balls of his feet with enthusiasm. He could hear the faint strains of something vaguely familiar through the door - piano plinking out an odd, unconventional chord every so often - and when the door didn't open he frowned, confused. Clearly Peter was home, since he didn't exactly leave the turntable running when he was out. He knocked again, a little louder this time, and when no answer came he tried the knob. The door gave way easily, and Blaine stepped into the entryway. "Hello?" he called quietly as he shut the door behind him. "Peter? I'm sorry, you didn't-"  
  
"One second, Janie - It's buried, but I promise you'll get it before I-" Peter hurried into the room, a pair of wingtips cradled in one arm, and made a beeline for the bookcase. He pulled one, two, three hardbacked volumes from different shelves, balancing them unevenly on the ankles of his shoes. His movements were too fast, aiming for precision but coming up short and instead reaching something rife with frenetic energy. His hair was mussed, sticking out on the side instead of slicked down neatly, and his shirt was untucked for what Blaine was pretty sure was the first time ever.  
  
"Are you okay?" Blaine asked without preamble, and Peter's head jerked up. His eyes widened in surprise, then lowered in something akin to regret, and he let out a quiet sigh of not-quite-relief.  
  
"Blaine. Oh- my dear boy. I'm sorry, Janie's been asking me for a few albums all morning, and I thought she had come over to pick them up." He raked his free hand through his hair, leaving it even less neat, and shifted his weight from one long leg to the other. "Did you knock? I didn't hear-"  
  
"Yes," Blaine replied, blinking. In ten months he had seen many sides of Peter - from the dapper perfectionist to the boy with a shyly wicked sense of humour to the brave young man who was so proud of him - but never had he seen him so completely  _rattled_. "What's going on?"  
  
Peter let out a sigh, blinking hard like he thought it might change what he saw before him, and he shook his head quickly. "Nothing. I- nothing. Do you need something to drink? I'm sorry- did I know you were coming, or did you just-"  
  
"No," Blaine replied gently, trying to save his boyfriend from the agony of searching so hard for sentence fragments. "I just came over. Are you okay? Did something happen-"  
  
"Ah," Peter cut him off. He fidgeted again, smudging away an invisible spot on the shoes he held with his fingertips, avoiding Blaine's gaze. There was a pause, then he began again with hesitation, "You see...my dear,  _dear_  boy..." He stopped himself again, then shook his head as though it didn't matter. Blaine liked to think neither of them was quite that dumb. He turned and quickly carried the books and shoes back into the bedroom, and Blaine followed, confused. "Really, you see, it's not- well. I wasn't expecting you yet, so I haven't exactly..."   
  
His tone was more affected than usual, the height of trying to pretend, but what Blaine noticed first was the open suitcase on Peter's bed. It was half-full with an assortment of folded shirts, the top pocket bulging with suspenders and bowties; books and hats were strewn across the blanket, and Peter dumped the armload of items into the suitcase. After a moment he seemed to catch himself and try to fidget the items into place with quick, jerky movements, sneaking and grasping at some semblance of order.   
  
He hadn't mentioned a trip. Had he? Blaine was pretty sure - completely sure, actually - that his boyfriend hadn't talked about going anywhere further than the beach in...months. Longer, probably; before they had become a couple, Peter had suggested he might tour Europe and meet up with friends of his after graduation, but now that their plans were firmly rooted in Palo Alto for the next year all talk of a voyage had stopped.   
  
"Is something wrong back home?" he asked, suddenly worried that something had happened to Peter's family. The poor boy - he hated his own parents sometimes, but he still didn't wish them ill, and he knew that as strange and distant as Peter's relationship was with his parents that he would still be devastated if-  
  
"No," Peter replied quickly. "Everyone's fine. Everything there is exactly as I left it. What I wouldn't give for it to be that simple..."  
  
"For what to be that simple?" Blaine pressed. Peter sighed, and Blaine sat on the bed, trying to catch his eye - trying to force his boyfriend to look at him, to talk to him-  
  
Peter sighed again, hanging his head. He had never seen him defeated by anything before - not the police, not anyone. He drew in a deep breath, and when he finally spoke his voice was high, clipped. "You see...my boy-" His tone wavered and he swallowed to keep it in check. "My notice came."  
  
"What notice?" Blaine asked, eyebrows lowering in confusion.  
  
"I'm to report-"  
  
"No." That didn't make sense, he couldn't- he couldn't possibly be saying what it sounded like he was...could he?   
  
"-to the induction center for my physical on-" Peter's voice was even now, surreally so, and Blaine wondered how he could possibly sound so steady when his own lungs felt like they were collapsing in on themselves.  
  
"But-  _how_?" he asked, swallowing. His throat was unbearably dry - how had it gotten so dry so quickly? "You just graduated...you burned your card..." He knew as he was saying it that it was a dumb reason; it didn't mean that the government couldn't find you anymore, it was symbolic, a protest; that was all.  
  
Peter choked on a mirthless laugh and shook his head. "Just lucky, I guess," he replied dryly as he fussed with his shoes again. "I leave in the morning. I'm sorry, my boy - I was going to tell you, I just hadn't figured out how yet-   
"Why are you packing?" Blaine asked, confused. A physical didn't require a suitcase, it was only an hour away. "You'll be home by dinner."  
  
Peter stopped, turning to look at him, and there was such pity in his eyes that Blaine wasn't sure whether to be more worried or kind of a little insulted. "No - I won't," he replied clearly.  
  
"How do you know?" Blaine pressed. "You could fail the physical - or the questionaire. If you tell them-" There was an easy solution, and they both knew it. If he just checked the box-  
  
"First of all, we both know I am not about to tell them that I'm ill when I'm not," Peter stated shortly. "I will not say that I'm sick to save myself."  
  
"But that's not what the question asks," Blaine protested. "It asks if you're a homosexual, and you are - you're proud of that. If they say that makes you unfit, then so be it - but you're not lying, and you're not-"  
  
"I won't," he repeated. "I'm not going to their physical. I'm not going to stand in a room with other young men who are destined to be rifle-fodder and then going to use their ignorance to save myself. I won't do it."  
  
"You have to go to the physical," Blaine replied, as it was obvious. Whether Peter checked the box or not - and clearly he should, but in either event - he had to at least  _go_.  
  
"No," he replied, shaking his head. "I'm to report in a week, and I'll be long gone by then."  
  
An odd, uncomfortable chill settled in the pit of Blaine's stomach, and he shifted as he looked up at his boyfriend, trying to read his face and understand - trying to get a sense of what he was going to say. Everything was moving too quickly, and maybe if he could anticipate the answers before they came it would give him a chance to ease in a little better, to stop feeling like the world was spinning too fast. "What do you mean?" he asked. "Where are you going?"  
  
"Rafael - remember, you met him at one of the rallies, I think? He has a friend who gets men like me out."  
  
Blaine wasn't sure whether he remembered Rafael or not, or what it mattered. There were a handful of organizer-protester types he had met at the meetings and rallies he'd tagged along on, but he didn't know any of them all that well. Still, he had a sinking suspicion he knew what Peter meant. He'd heard rumblings, offhand conversations, references to an underground railroad and homes in Vancouver... "Wait, you're not-"  
  
"You can come with me," Peter said quickly, and Blaine's head jerked up. Of all the responses he had expected, that one hadn't been anywhere in the realm of possibility. "If I call Rafael right now, he'll have arrangements for us both by morning."  
  
"What? That's- okay, you know what, that's ridiculous. I'm not moving to Canada," Blaine stated, trying to even sort out what that would mean. What in the world would he do in Canada? He didn't have a job up there, and he couldn't just enroll in school- "I only have a year left, I can't-"  
  
"Exactly," Peter cut him off, grabbing his hand. His grip was tighter than usual, verging on desperate, as his tone of voice rose with every sentence. "In a year, you'll be in the same position, and the last thing in the world I would ever want...I couldn't bear the thought of them sending you over there, my dear boy. Thinking of you traipsing through a jungle, losing your soul bit by bit until one day your life followed? No-  _No_. I'm not about to let that happen. But if you come with me now, it wouldn't have to."  
  
Blaine felt like somewhere, underneath the insanity of this, he should be flattered - touched, even. Peter was terrified of him being sent to war, more than he would have been based just on the principle of it all; he was afraid of losing him. But he couldn't focus on that - it was maybe the fourth most important point. The first three were much more pressing. "There are other ways," he stated.   
  
Peter stared at him, an edge of betrayal in his eyes. "Like what?" he asked defensively. "I'd love to hear your plans instead, your ways of avoiding the inevitable."  
  
"There are ways of getting out of this that don't involve fleeing the country, Peter, you could-" he racked his brain. He knew there were ways, he knew Peter's friends talked about them, but it was hard to piece them together when everything was being thrown at him like this. It was hard to piece together much of anything. "You could file for conscientious objector status. You don't believe in war - not just this one, but any of them. You have something like ten days to file a request to be excused from service."  
  
Peter shook his head. "First, they never approve it unless you're practically a missionary. They say it doesn't have to be religion-based, but it always is. Always. And you know how I feel about organized, Western-based religion, which is all that some Texas good-old-boy out at the base is going to recognize anyway. Besides, even if they would approve it: I'm not going to use their system-"  
  
"Peter-" Blaine tried to butt in, trying not to roll his eyes. Of all the times to be against something-  
  
"I'm not going to use their system to my advantage," Peter continued, talking over Blaine. His jaw set firm, he shook his head, adamant. "I'm not going to go through the niceties of filling out their paperwork and slip my way through their loopholes when I fundamentally believe that everything they do is bullshit. It's disingenuous, it's aiding a machine I don't support and will  _never_ support. It's- it's the same thing the sons of senators are doing when they go join the Air National Guard and know they'll never in a million years have to do anything combat-related. For every boy who uses bureaucratic excuses to get out of it, another boy has to go in his place. What am I supposed to say to the mother of the son who gets sent when I get out of serving because I'm an antiwar homosexual."  
  
Blaine rolled his eyes, unable to stop himself now because of all the dumb things he'd heard someone say, that had to rank in the top five. "Wouldn't they send someone else in your place if you go to Canada?" he asked, sure that they both knew the answer. "The draft doesn't stop just because one person runs away, Peter. They just send someone else."  
  
"Which is why we should all go," he stated. Blaine started to shrug off the flip answer, but Peter continued, "We should all refuse. We should  _all_  stand up and tell them that we won't fight their war, we won't further their ignorant and moronic 'domino theory', we won't do it - if there were enough of us, it would work. It worked with boycotts in the South; enough brave men and women stood up and said they wouldn't support Jim Crowe anymore, and now look where things are. It- it worked on New Years, my boy, you saw it - you saw the law come down on our side, but only because we stood together. If we all stood up-"  
  
"How is this standing up?" Blaine demanded. "How is it anything other than running away? You're not chaining yourself outside an Army base or protesting in front of the physical, you're sneaking off to Canada and hoping nobody pulls you back before you hit the border. That's not standing up for anything at all."  
  
It was the first Peter had been silent, and Blaine looked him over, trying to figure out what was going through his mind. Maybe he really had convinced his boyfriend that this was crazy. Maybe he had made him reconsider-...but the wounded look in Peter's eyes made Blaine think otherwise. "They would arrest me," he stated quietly, his voice even with defensive contempt simmering just beneath the surface. "That doesn't help a single person. They would arrest me and move on to the next. What good would I do anyone from jail? What would it help  _anyone_  if I were spending five years in Leavenworth? At least in Canada I can help, I can...I can bring others across, I can set up lives for us there. I can do something besides sit in a cell and listen to snide comments from young men who won the job lottery and aren't getting blown away in Southeast Asia. But I suppose I shouldn't expect someone who would just check the box and be done with it to understand that."   
  
It was clear from the way he threw the words back at Blaine that he was hurt and just trying to lash out in return, but they stung nonetheless. Even if they were just retaliation for- Blaine didn't even know what exactly, for insinuating that running away wasn't the answer? - they hurt just the same. A year ago he couldn't have checked it; a year ago he would have been terrified that someone would look at his physical paperwork for some reason and know who he was. If he had been drafted instead of going to graduate school, he would have gone without saying a word because it would have seemed less terrifying to die than to admit to being exactly what he had known for years. Admitting that - illness or not - was progress and would never be cowardly to him. "I'm sorry we can't all have your moral conviction and would rather proclaim who we are than run across the border in the middle of the night," he replied, eyes narrowing.  
  
The change in tone seemed to strike something in Peter, because his entire posture changed - the rigid defensiveness giving way to hunched contrition. "I'm sorry," he replied quietly, then let out a long, quiet sigh, head down, before lifting his gaze to Blaine's. "My dear boy. I'm sorry," he repeated. "I didn't mean- you know I understand...it's been an awful day."  
  
"I know," Blaine replied. It had only been awful for him for half an hour, but it felt like a lifetime; he could only imagine how frantic and alone Peter had felt for the few hours before he had arrived. He reached out to take Peter's hand again, earning an exhausted but genuine smile. "But we can figure this out." He didn't know how yet, but they could. There had to be a way to get Peter out of this. If anyone deserved to be a conscientious objector on the grounds of hating war, he was sure his boyfriend qualified. And there had to be some way to get him to see that he had options that, while maybe not perfect, were better than the alternatives. Maybe-  
  
"We could do this together, my boy," Peter said, squeezing his hand, and it was then that Blaine saw the first glimmer of hope return to his eyes. "If you came with me-"  
  
"But I-"  
  
"Shh - just for a moment, just listen. There are schools up there, great ones. And they need music teachers everywhere, don't they?"  
  
"Well, yes," he admitted.  
  
"And Canada's not perfect, but there are cases working their way through the courts now that might even decriminalize sodomy - like in Britain. I have no idea how many decades it may be before they do that here. For that matter, we could go up there just long enough to settle in, get passports, and then go to Europe. You would love London, my boy, you'd love it as much as I do - maybe more. They have so many kinds of music, so much vibrant fashion and literature and these cozy little homes..."   
  
"We can't get passports in Canada, we're not from there," Blaine pointed out. He hated to do it, being the voice of reason when Peter looked halfway contented and excited for the first time all day, but it needed said. "And we're breaking the law going up there, so I don't think they'll let us become citizens."  
  
"I suppose you're right," Peter replied. "Toronto, then. It's meant to be the closest thing they have to San Francisco. I doubt anywhere outside Europe could quite measure up to that, but anything near wouldn't be awful. And you could handle the cold, since you're from Ohio - I don't have to worry about you freezing to death in snow," he joked weakly. Blaine offered a faint smile, and Peter let go of his hand for a moment to shove the suitcase aside; it clattered to the floor, shoes and shirts spilling out, but his boyfriend didn't seem to care enough to gather them and put them right again. He crawled into bed, opening his arms, and Blaine laid beside him. "We could get a place together up there," Peter offered quietly, broad hand rubbing slowly up and down Blaine's bicep and shoulder. "An apartment that's both of ours - much larger than that little hole in the wall you live in now. Maybe even one with a second bedroom, somewhere we can set up a study. Or - better yet - a room just for records. How does that sound? With a turntable and all our albums..."  
  
Blaine was tempted to wonder where the albums would come from, since from the looks of it Peter was going to be traveling pretty light. And he knew for a fact he couldn't fit even half of his own music collection into his luggage any more than Peter could fit his books. But he forced a faint smile and managed, "It sounds great."   
  
Because it did. It  _sounded_  fantastic - a place of their own, with space to lounge around...a tea kettle on the stove, a closet full of button-down shirts and stacks and stacks of bowties and caps...a bed that fit them both easily and a room just for listening to music. It was something straight out of his dreams. But how did someone rent an apartment - of any size, let alone with two whole bedrooms - without a job? And what job could people get if they ran across the border to escape the US government? He didn't know for sure, but he was pretty sure it wouldn't be a good one.   
  
Maybe it would. Peter had his degree already, and classics weren't specific to America so maybe he could get a job teaching at one of the universities up there. They had to have plenty of colleges in Canada, right? And he could finish his degree and teach at one of the elementary schools, and they could make things work.  
  
...Except they couldn't.   
  
He had turned down two domestic fantasies in his lifetime. The first had been because what the boy thought he wanted was all wrong...and because the idea of having a fantasy like that at all had been too terrifying for words; the second...he wished he could be 17 and naive enough to think it might work. He wished he could be as young and foolish as Kurt had been back at Dalton so he could genuinely believe the dream Peter was spinning. Kurt had thought everything would just come to them back then, that just by wishing and being in the right place a lifestyle would appear...and if only that were true. If only wanting something enough could make Canada a viable option, a place to make a life together. If only there weren't practical considerations like money and school and kind of technically being fugitives.   
  
But he wasn't 17 anymore. Neither of them were.  
  
"We could get a place anyway," he offered quietly. He half expected Peter to contradict him, to reassert his plans to flee, but his boyfriend remained silent but for deep, relaxed breathing. "Not this year - I mean a two-bedroom apartment on just a first-year professor's salary? We'll need more than that. But by next fall, when I'm working too, we could get somewhere together...with a record room, and the living room full of all your books with big, comfortable chairs to read in..."  
  
They could have all the things they both wanted if Peter could calm himself down enough to stay. They could work it all out, Blaine was absolutely sure - there were lawyers that they knew through friends of friends of protesters who were fighting draft notices all the time. They had whole systems worked out to make a person as unfit for service as possible - and he was pretty sure that while Peter was brilliant and incredible in a lot of ways, he could look unsuitable for the military without much help.   
  
They could make this work. He bet if they could just have a little more time, he could convince Peter of what he already knew: that running away wouldn't help anyone, that there was no way the entire population of American men aged 18-26 would leave the country, and that he could do more from within the system than he could from outside it. It hadn't been enough for people in the North to protest segregation, the fight wasn't won by people in Chicago and New York and Philadelphia - it had been by people down South, by sending people who could test the laws and file suits, by getting enough attention on the issues that Congress could pass new laws to protect people...and none of that would have happened if people in the South hadn't stood up, too. Peter could work to change conscientious objector status requirements, he could work with other guys and point out that no man should have to leave his home, his family, his country, just to avoid fighting in a war that he doesn't believe in. He could do so much good, so many amazing and powerful things if he stayed.  
  
They could talk about that in the morning, over breakfast. For now, it was more important to make sure he had something to stick around for.  
  
Because they were worth staying for. There was no way Peter could say otherwise. They would have a future together - if Peter fought half as hard for himself as he had fought for Blaine, for the two of them together...if he fought for the right to live his life even a fraction of how hard he had fought to help Blaine see the same...  
  
He would, Blaine knew. He was strong like that - determined.  
  
At least, he hoped he was.  
  
"Somewhere quiet," Peter mused. "A sidestreet, not too much traffic, but close to everything."  
  
"With somewhere for our own car - so we don't have to keep stealing Janie's," Blaine added, and Peter choked out a laugh.   
  
"Somewhere close enough that we don't need to steal a friend's car and drive an hour and a half each way to find people like us," Peter suggested, and Blaine grinned.  
  
"Yeah, that sounds good, too." There were bound to be places further north where they could get down to the university for Peter to teach - if that was where he ended up, anyway - but still near bars and restaurants where they didn't have to hide. He wasn't sure where exactly, but he was sure of it. Or if not here, then maybe down south - Los Angeles probably had a community, too. For one thing, if creative and performer types were more likely to be homosexuals like them, then LA had to be almost as full as New York. And there were plenty of schools there for each of them. And if the same laws applied there - which they should, right, since it was still California? - then they would be better off there than plenty of other places outside the state.   
  
If they had to leave northern California, which they might not have to anyway - not now, not ever.  
  
"Somewhere nice and cozy," Peter suggested, tugging him a little closer.   
  
"Nothing too grand or ostentatious, just comfortable," Blaine supplied. The opposite of his parents' house.  
  
"Exactly. With all the things that mean something to us...with you."  
  
Blaine smiled broadly as he tucked himself against Peter's chest, feeling his lover's heartbeat through his shirt. They would be fine - they would figure out everything in the morning, and even if it took a little bit of time for a draft exemption hearing it would certainly all be settled by the time he graduated next June. Then they could compare job offers and find somewhere together, somewhere to begin their life as a couple and not just as two silly boys.  
  
Maybe by then things would changing. So much had changed in the country in the past few years, and things were moving so quickly in England now, and maybe in a year it would be okay, to be  _them_ , to have a second bedroom that neither of them pretended to sleep in.   
  
They would be okay. He wasn't sure how he knew, but he did. They would be just fine, together, in a cozy two-bedroom apartment up in San Francisco, with overstuffed closets and bookshelves filled to the brim.  
  
If they could get through the next week, anyway. But he was sure they could; in the morning, Peter would be less panicked and could listen to reason, and they could talk things through, and everything would be okay.  
  
Peter kissed the top of his head, his lips lingering for a long moment as the young man held him close, almost clutched him. He murmured something, lips moving against Blaine's hair, but Blaine couldn't make out what it was or why his boyfriend seemed to desperate to hold him. He was probably just afraid - and Blaine couldn't blame him. He would be, too, if his draft notice had shown up. It was probably the sort of thing that could make a man's life flash before his eyes. He wrapped his arms around Peter's waist, holding him securely in return to reassure him.   
  
They would be fine. The worst was coming, perhaps, but it wouldn't last long. In a few weeks, everything would be back to normal.  
  
They fell asleep like that, Blaine's arms snug around Peter's waist, Peter's face buried against Blaine's slicked-down hair, dreaming of a lovely starter-apartment for them both.  
  
When Blaine awoke the next morning, the bedroom was empty.


	23. Chapter 23

Blaine wasn't sure how he knew even before he opened his eyes. Maybe it was the way he stretched as he untucked from sleep and brushed against nothing but his own crumpled blankets. Maybe the stillness - no sounds from the living room, no fountain pen nibs scratching a notepad or drip of the coffee percolator or whistle of Peter's beloved tea kettle. No 'hmm' in deep thought over a book or turning pages or jazz music playing in the living room - quietly, so as not to wake him.  
  
Mid-morning sun streamed through the bedroom window, but even the pools of light on the sheets couldn't create enough warmth to form the illusion of another person in bed beside him. All the warmth in the world couldn't fill the cold twist in his gut as he screwed his eyes tighter for a moment, trying to hold on...  
  
Until his eyes opened, he could pretend none of it had happened. If he focused hard enough, he could tell himself that he almost heard the rustle of book pages turning and nearly smelled freshly brewed coffee wafting into the bedroom - a gift from his boyfriend, who made it for him even though he hated the beverage.   
  
But it wasn't the same; it felt forced, artificial...everything Peter would hate.  
  
Still, as Blaine unscrewed his eyes, he hoped for a moment that the still emptiness of the bedroom wouldn't mean anything. Peter could be plenty of places, and maybe- Because if they could just talk about all of this, he was sure they could figure things out and no one would have to go to Canada. There were bound to be other ways, if Peter could calm his own panic enough to listen. There were ways...  
  
The suitcase from the previous night was gone, all its spilt contents gathered and carried away in the night. The closet door lay open before him, more than half the hangers swinging empty on their rod. The sizable collection of wingtips and oxfords and brogues had been pared down by about a third.  
  
He wondered what would become of them now, where they would go...what his dapper young man would do without them... But then, he supposed, they couldn't possibly all fit in a suitcase or two. And Peter could make do - he guessed - on only a few pairs of shoes.   
  
Nothing could put a damper on Peter's style, not even having to travel light.  
  
His heart ached as he imagined the young man he loved sitting on a bus, book cradled in his hands, fedora resting on the seat beside him, northbound.   
  
Still, maybe there was hope. There was still the possibility that his boyfriend was out in the kitchen making breakfast or-... _something_ , anyway, maybe-  
  
Drawing in a deep breath to steel his nerves, Blaine slipped out of bed and padded out to the living room. He could feel his clothes askew, tickets crumpled in his pocket - had that only been the morning before? - and shirt pressed into wrinkles he wasn't sure would ever come out. He could iron all day, but it wouldn't fix things.  
  
Not that ironing ever fixed things that were wrong. Not really - not for anyone except his mother.  
  
He let out a long sigh, heart sinking. There were traces of emptiness in the living room: empty places on the shelves that had once been packed to the brim, where Peter had carefully plucked reading material he couldn't travel - or live - without. A few from each shelf...that must have made the suitcase heavy, Blaine thought to himself with a faint, wry smile, but his boyfriend certainly couldn't just leave without any of his books. He had shipped all of them back from  _Europe_ , for goodness' sake, and that must have cost a small fortune. Anyone with that much devotion...  
  
He should pack them up, Blaine thought to himself. Someone had to, and maybe if he asked around-  _someone_  would know where Peter was. Or Peter could contact him. He wasn't paranoid enough to be one of the activists who thought the government was tapping all their phones or anything, and if Peter had never been afraid of letting their relationship be obvious in their calls to one another before, Blaine doubted he would be worried enough to avoid calling now. He could send the books to Canada, to wherever Peter got settled, and then at least...  
  
...At least the man he loved wouldn't be so lonely. At least the apartment wouldn't be so bare, with just a dozen books scattered around the room.   
  
Besides, it wouldn't be fair to Janie, would it? Making her pack everything - he was sure that was what Peter had planned. She had cleaned up after him enough times, loaned him her car at a moment's notice, worked her schedule around someone bailing him out of jail...the least Blaine could do was help. It was the right thing to do.  
  
He reached out and snagged the first book his fingertips touched, tugging it off the shelf - a worn, dog-earred paperback, someone with a Greek name he didn't readily recognize - and his breath caught. He couldn't- it wasn't his place to pack up. It was Peter's, and that was who should have been-  
  
He swallowed hard, wishing it would help him not ache so badly, that there were something -  _anything_  - he could do to- Should he have gone with him? Gone along, with nothing but a bag full of shirts and bowties and a suitcase full of records? Was Peter right? Were they all foolish for staying in a place where they weren't safe from war? Wasn't love the sort of thing that was worth sacrifices? At least worth giving up a temporary home in exchange for all the security and peace-  
  
He hadn't been able to give it up before. He had been too young, too scared, too sick...for months he had wondered if, had he been able to do things over again, whether he would go to New York with Kurt, or whether he would go inside on Christmas Eve, or any number of- If he could fix all of the poor decisions he had made, would he?  
  
But this, the empty living room and abandoned bookcase...this was his answer, wasn't it? When it came to love and sacrifice, he was just as cowardly as he'd always been.  
  
Maybe it wasn't cowardice, not really. He hadn't been  _afraid_  of going to Canada, there was nothing inherently terrifying about taking a Greyhound bus north along the coast or settling in Vancouver or Toronto or anywhere else Peter might make his way.   
  
...He could still go, he pondered as his fingertips brushed the well-worn spine. Get a ticket, pack his bags, and be there within a day of when Peter arrived. They could have it all, he could make the leap he'd been too scared to make, risk it all for love, move away from everything - but this time for the  _right_  reasons.  
  
Assuming he could find him.   
  
That part might be tricky, Blaine acknowledged; Canada was a pretty big place. At least with Kurt he had known a destination, a city, a place with a single - though enormous - phone book where he could stand in a booth and dial every Hummel until he found the boy he had loved. With Peter that wouldn't be an option...at least, not until his boyfriend called him and told him where he had ended up.  
  
He would call. They hadn't broken anything off, Peter would certainly call and at least try to persuade him to come up North once he was settled in. And when he did, Blaine would be ready.  
  
With a renewed sense of hope, Blaine tucked the book back into place on the shelf. He could pack later, once he knew what he had space to take with him and what needed to be shipped. It would be expensive, but what was their perfect place worth to him? With its rooms full of books and albums - he'd sell off whatever he couldn't move to pay for it anyway. New students coming into town in the fall or moving off-campus for the first time were always looking for inexpensive used furniture. That should earn him plenty.  
  
Blaine turned to move back to the bedroom, ready to clean himself up and go home to wait for the call - it would be at least a day, he was sure, because the bus ride had to be long...maybe a few more days, if Peter waited until he got settled before calling. He was probably just staying with friends of friends for a little while and might not want to use their phone to call all the way down to California. He stopped as he saw a book and an album placed in the center of the otherwise-empty coffee table. From their arrangement, he was pretty sure they weren't left behind accidentally - they hadn't been tossed aside or set down and forgotten, but stacked squarely. He approached, peered at the items, and picked up the book. The Berlin Stories, one of Peter's favourites, one of the ones he said he wished Blaine had started with - he loved the story of the three men at the beach house, even as ill-fated as they were, even as naive as the one man was about the rise of the Nazis and how dangerous the world was becoming for them...  
  
Why hadn't he taken it? Blaine would have expected it to be the first one in the bag - it was one of the ones Peter had taken with him to England and brought back in his suitcase, and unlike a few books he'd ended up with duplicates of, Blaine had never seen a second copy around the apartment, not even when he'd borrowed it in his ill-fated attempt to see the good in his 'condition.' Of all the books to leave, this was the last one he would have expected.  
  
That meant he had to plan on being reunited.   
  
Blaine beamed, relaxing as he realized Peter's message. There was no way the boy would abandon his favourite book, certainly not the one he had dragged around the world with him, so this must be a promise. A guarantee that they would be together again because Blaine would have to bring him the book to go on a shelf in their new apartment.   
  
Peter had always been romantic like that.  
  
He flicked open the front cover and saw an inscription on the front page:  
  


> _"That is part of the beauty of all literature. You discover that your longings are universal longings, that you're not lonely and isolated from anyone. You belong." -F. Scott Fitzgerald._

  
  
It was Peter's writing, there was no mistaking the elegant script made with long strokes of a nibbed pen, but it had never been there before. Blaine couldn't speak for every bit of marginalia in the book, but he knew that during the three weeks he'd had the book back in the fall, there hadn't been anything written on the first page. And though the quote was appropriate, he didn't understand why Peter would write it in a book by someone who wasn't F. Scott Fitzgerald. Why write it in a book at all, and not a notebook, if he just wanted to remember the quote that resonated with him? It certainly summed up the young man he loved, felt like trying to force his way through bleak stories before Peter had brought over jazz records to let him listen to what all of it meant, but it seemed an odd place to write something like that.  
  
He set down the book, smoothing its cover closed, as he studied the album. Dusty Springfield; Blaine had collected a few of hers in the past few months - it seemed like she was starting to get popular enough in the US that her records were getting easier to find - but this was one he didn't have yet. He picked it up to see which songs there were, since bits and pieces of her UK hits were being released on supposedly-new albums a lot lately, and a folded piece of paper fell out. Eyebrows raised in surprise, he reached down and picked it up. His mind raced as he hurried to unfold it - he bet this was where Peter had hidden instructions for him, or the address where he would be staying, or some way to contact him - the name of the friend he had arranged it all through, so Blaine could call and get more information. Of course; because if Peter had left the book as a promise, he had to leave  _something_  to ensure that the logistics didn't fail them, right?  
  


> _My dear boy,_  
>  Remember Dusty - and jazz - and me - always.  
> I am prouder of you than words could ever express.  
> I am so sorry circumstances were beyond our control.  
> All my love, fondness, and affection forever.

  
  
Blaine stared, not understanding. Why would he say- why did it sound like the end? Why would Peter write something that sounded like a Dear John letter when he'd left the book to-  
  
...He hadn't left the book for Blaine to bring it with him when he came to Canada. He'd left it to remember him by.  
  
To say goodbye.  
  
He sat down hard in the wingback chair, grasping at the arm for balance. No. Peter couldn't have- they weren't supposed to end like this. He didn't understand how- they hadn't fought, they hadn't ended things between them, they hadn't said that the draft had to mean anything about the two of  _them_ , just that Peter was determined to go somewhere he thought was safer. They hadn't-  
  
...He hadn't gotten to say goodbye. He hadn't known when he felt asleep in his love's arms that it would be the last time- and Peter,  _damn_  him for sneaking out and not even having the courage to see him, to say something to him, to say he loved him once more to his face, to-  
  
Blaine dug at his eyes with his fist as tears began to sting. He didn't want to cry for him, he wanted to be angry, betrayed, indignant over the cowardly way in which Peter had fled. (Not that fleeing itself was cowardly, that was a product of Peter being afraid and being in what he had wrongly perceived as a hopeless situation that he could have helped if the boy had stuck around long enough to let him.) He wanted to be furious that after everything they had been through, after everything Peter had rescued him from, he hadn't even had the decency to let Blaine thank him. He wanted to be able to just be outraged that the boy who claimed to want a life with him hadn't done anything to try to make that happen, had just walked away - or that the person who seemed older than anyone else on campus could run away like a scared little boy and avoid having a real, adult conversation about what they both needed and how they could get it.  
  
But instead all he felt was  _hurt_  - an unbearable pressure and ache in his chest, a sharp twist in his gut, and the prick of tears compounded by the hasty twist of his balled-up hand.   
  
He missed him so much already, wanted him so  _badly_ \- it hadn't even been half an hour, but the knowledge that he wasn't walking through the front door on his way back from the market any time soon - or ever again - was enough to make time seem vast, unending...just  _awful_.  
  
He knew he should get up or...or do something, go home maybe, but he couldn't bring himself to. Once he left, that would be it; he wouldn't be back to box things and send them, he wouldn't let himself in and pick another ton of books to take with him up to Canada. Once he left...  
  
Once he left, it would be just him in his own apartment again, alone again, without even a bottle or six of beer to fill the gaping hole in his chest. He had thought those days were over, that he wouldn't have to feel so- so  _wrong_  anymore, but now he was right back where he had started.  
  
...Well, not exactly. It wasn't like things had been. This felt almost worse, but not quite. The vast silence was unbearable, but at least he didn't want to crawl out of his skin and be someone else - anyone else, anyone in the world. Not that it was much consolation to feel not-sick when he felt so painfully empty. Lack of isolation was cold comfort to the lonely.  
  
This must have been how Kurt felt.  
  
The thought came to him suddenly, out of nowhere, and he immediately looked around guiltily, as though even the idea of someone else were betraying what he had lost today. He was greeted by nothing but silence and a room mostly-full of books that no one was around to read. As he settled back into his seat, the thought repeated itself, louder this time. This must have been how Kurt felt: alone, betrayed, hurt...and he'd had every right to.   
  
This was different, Blaine knew. He had run away for his own sake, Peter had gone to do something-...well, something Peter thought was noble, anyway, even if he still thought it was the dumbest course of action the boy he loved could have taken. Even if he thought Peter had made a ridiculous, costly mistake, at least he had done so for a reason he thought was worth it. ...So had he, he guessed; at the time it had seemed like the only way to save himself, though now it seemed like the dumbest thing in the world, the most cowardly reason to hurt someone. He wondered if Peter would regret it later, the way he regretted moving to California without warning. Maybe in time Peter would wish he had done things differently and spend an entire holiday wondering about driving 10 hours across a couple states to try to find him.  
  
Maybe he would be there. Maybe he would say yes. Because honestly right now, all he wanted was the man he loved back beside him.  
  
...maybe Kurt felt the same way.   
  
Was it wrong to even wonder that, after all this time? Did it betray what he felt for Peter to even think about whether Kurt might have said yes had he driven across Pennsylvania and New Jersey and found him on Christmas?   
  
He started to ask himself whether that even mattered, but of course it did - it mattered whether Peter would feel betrayed even though he wasn't there to know. Besides - it wasn't as though either of them would be walking in the door any time soon. A little idle curiosity never hurt anyone, and at least it provided a minor distraction for a few moments, just a few seconds of hope before plunging back into loneliness in the living room of someone who had once loved him.  
  
Who still loved him, he corrected himself. Who still loved him. Who was proud of him.  
  
The words pierced him, and he felt the unbearable ache begin to overtake him again. He wanted Peter to be- he was so glad that the man was, but mostly he wanted him  _here_  to be proud. He wanted him to be able to say it aloud, to hear him, to feel his arms around him the way he had the night of the New Year's Eve party-  
  
With a deep, mournful sigh, he reached over to pick up the album again, slipping it out of its sleeve, desperate for the soulful balm of a deeply sad chanteuse. He had a feeling that he'd be unearthing his Judy Garland collections when he finally decamped to his own apartment, lamenting along with her how the man had made him love him and then gotten away, but for now...Dusty would do just as nicely.   
  
Peter had known he would need her music right about now. There was something about his choice of parting gifts that made even the [opening orchestra](http://youtu.be/7Ayxza2G5NE) sound more melancholy and more fitting all at once.  
  
 _How many tears do you cry  
If love should break your heart in two?  
How many tears will I cry  
Now that I know I'm losing you?_  
  
Blaine chuckled weakly as he settled into the chair, sinking deeper into the cushions. Peter had certainly chosen an appropriate one, hadn't he? If his goal were to say goodbye with song, then clearly he had done his job.  
  
He had known... Blaine's heart twisted again, and he curled up a little against the arm of the chair. There was something oddly comforting about even such an uncomfortable style of seat: wingbacks felt closed-off, not just from people who might want to see you from across the room or something, but enclosed and private. Protected. He sighed deeply, closing his eyes and letting his chest ache along with the loneliness of the song.  
  
 _I can't stop wanting you and no matter what you do  
You're still a part of me, even though I'm losing you_  
  
He couldn't be angry, not really. Peter hadn't left him with cold words and broken promises, he'd left...lovenotes in the languages they understood the best. He cared that this would hurt and had tried to soothe it in what little ways he could. Blaine wished that would do anything to stop the thrum of longing that seemed to take over more of his body with every minute, but nothing anyone could do would make that end.   
  
Hurting like this was normal - natural. He could try covering it up with distractions or - god forbid - more drinking, but it wouldn't make any of it go away. All he could do was wait it out and hope that, with enough time, it might hurt less.  
  
 _How many years will go by  
Before my heart begins to mend?  
Waiting and wondering why  
I never thought our love could end?_  
  
It  _would_  hurt less, one day. People said that, anyway, about time healing wounds, and he had no reason not to believe them. Time changed a lot of things. This year alone-...he didn't even  _remember_  last summer, except for feeling awkward at parties and trying to get a lot of girls' numbers and hating every moment that the girls couldn't fix him.   
  
None of that would have been possible without Peter. Not one bit - he never would have been able to see things the right way, for starters, to see himself as anything but a walking affliction in need of a cure. Let alone having someone who cared enough about him to make him care about himself, even a little bit.   
  
Peter was proud of him. And he was too grateful for words - or music - to ever express the debt he owed the man.  
  
 _I try forgetting you but you're still here on my mind  
It would take a miracle, but someday maybe i'll find  
That I'm in the loving arms of someone  
That I know, know is the someone  
Who'll kiss all the heartache away  
And on that day  
I won't mind losing you_  
  
He had needed this year. He had needed  _Peter_. Maybe now...well, not now, but one day in the future...he could have the apartment full of books and records with a man who cared about him even a fraction as much as Peter had. Or maybe a place like Kurt had described all those years ago - somewhere elegant, full of friends and music and conversation...he didn't want to run away as fast as his legs could carry him anymore.   
  
One day he might find someone he could share things with. Or maybe he would move somewhere or do something and find one of those two again...after all, he had loved them both, it had just been a product of circumstances. Maybe in other circumstances, things could be right - they could work if things were different, if laws were different, now that  _he_  was different.   
  
Or maybe he would find someone new. He hated the thought now, but he would have hated the idea of Peter six months ago and now he didn't want to live without the man. He wasn't even 26 and had been lucky enough to find two amazing men he had loved more than anything...surely the remaining 2/3 of his life would provide him with at least one, right?   
  
It was what Peter would want - for him to be happy, find someone. It was what would make him proud.  
  
Blaine shook his head, not wanting to think about any of that yet. He lifted the turntable arm and slipped the album back into its sleeve, gathered his things, and left.  
  
* * * * *  
  
Like clockwork, the Saturday before the start of classes arrived with block after block of raucous parties.  
  
Blaine had fully planned on not going to any of them. After all, what good would it do him to be around people he wasn't especially close to, with things he really didn't want to start drinking, with girls he felt he should try to woo out of habit but had no interest in? But a few of the Mendicants were going, and the knowledge that this was his last year of school was starting to sink in. There wouldn't be any more first-week parties after this one, at least not for him, and he should at least put in an appearance.  
  
Besides, it was always a good idea to meet the new crop of students. At least a few of them might have a great ear for acapella, for one thing, and he was kind of in the market for friends these days. Not going out with anyone except his boyfriend - his now-ex-boyfriend, he added glumly - had put a damper on his social life, and now that his now-ex-boyfriend was living...presumably somewhere in Canada, Blaine didn't know where exactly...he should probably find someone to spend time with outside his own apartment.   
  
There was plenty to do at home, he supposed - there were always new songs to arrange, and the Beatles came out with a new album practically every month he could listen to for hours at a time, but Blaine guessed that maybe he should venture out every so often. Not to bars and parties all the time, but there might be someone else who would...he wasn't sure, exactly. Who might enjoy going and listening to records at the music store every week? Who might have a car and a desire to drive up into San Francisco to try to find all the places Peter had talked about but never actually taken him?  
  
He wasn't really sure what he was meant to do with neither parties nor Peter to fill his time.  
  
Blaine drew in a deep breath as he began up the front walk. The house hosting this year's music graduate students was smaller than last year's, people spilling out onto the front lawn. Luckily the [music](http://youtu.be/3a7cHPy04s8) was plenty loud, even over the hum of conversation.   
  
Just a couple hours. If it was really that boring or made him feel that much like drinking, he could leave.   
  
He paused, shaking out his shoulders a moment before closing his eyes, drawing another deep breath, and getting himself into a performance mindset. His smile was broad, his eyes bright, his stance confident...just who people at the party would want to talk to.  
  
He hoped, anyway. If all else failed, he was sure he could win at least some of them over with an impromptu performance; it had always worked before.  
  
Blaine made his way inside, between the clusters of people conversing in varying states of non-sobriety in the living room, squeezed down the narrow hallway past the growing line for the bathroom, and into the kitchen. The table was full of every possible type of alcohol, most of it open and half-empty already, surrounded by a sea of discarded cups. He could feel the old queasiness creeping back in; he had passed what felt like a hundred people and not one face was friendly - not one person knew him well enough to engage him in conversation, and he was destined to spend the entire night plastered to the wall unless he figured out some way to appear a little more worth-knowing. A surefire way to feel - and be - less awkward sat right there, so close, and even though the last thing he wanted was to wake up feeling awful in the morning - alone, nauseous, with a throbbing headache and crippling shame - he wasn't sure there was any way to manage a party like this without at least a little beer to smooth down the rough edges.  
  
Maybe he should just go, he concluded with a quick shake of his head. It had been dumb to come here; he had known exactly what it would be like, exactly what he would need to do once he arrived...what exactly did he think would be different a year later? Just because  _he_ was different didn't mean the ritual was, and maybe-  
  
Across the small kitchen, tucked back against the door to the pantry, a young man stood. He surveyed the room, eyes darting from group to group as though trying to figure out where he fit in and how to best approach people. He held a cup in his hand, fingers gripping the mystery beverage tightly, but he didn't raise it to his lips - he began to a few times but never quite got there, seeming unsure of every move he made, even whether to lift his cup.  
  
He looked so achingly uncomfortable...Blaine knew that feeling all too well. Was that what he looked like, too? Practically trying to disappear into the wall?  
  
Something else about him was familiar - not that Blaine knew him, he was sure he hadn't met the man before in his life, but he felt like he understood him completely. From the awkward angle of his wrist and hand as he held the cup, to the way he shifted his stance every so often while studying the crowd, to the discomfort in his eyes...  
  
Blaine didn't know how he knew, but he  _knew_. Knew the boy was like him - and not just because he didn't really want to be at the party. There was more to it than that. The guy was like him, like Peter, like Kurt though nowhere near as confident as either of the other two. It wasn't anything about the way he was dressed - not like Peter or Kurt who stood out in a crowd for their eccentric clothing - or any of the stereotypes his father derided as "classic symptoms" (he hadn't even heard the man speak, how could he know if he lisped? Who could see a mince when the man hadn't walked?), it was just... _there_. Hidden and completely obvious in the poor fellow's awkward misery.  
  
He wanted to help. He  _could_  help. He had been that boy in the corner - though with his usual party strategy he tried not to be for long. He had been that uncomfortable in his own skin and felt so wrong and out-of-place among peers...but he didn't anymore, at least not usually, because of exactly one man. One man who had taken pity on him at an awful back-to-school party and decided to help him, because he knew things that Blaine could never have imagined back then.  
  
The music [changed,](http://youtu.be/52idzj0pxbY) and the upbeat rock of the Rolling Stones gave way to strumming and lyrics of loss. A group of his fellow musicians who no doubt had the new album - and most of whom had probably been at the concert a few weeks earlier, too - began an impromptu singalong; Blaine's eyes remained locked on the poor boy in the corner whose mouth flicked into a sad smile at the song before he finally raised the cup to his mouth and took a long swig, eyes closed as though trying to lose himself in his surroundings.  
  
Blaine could help him. He had to help him. After all, if Peter hadn't been there to help him, where would he be?  
  
There was so much he couldn't do; he couldn't stop a war or a draft, he couldn't single-handedly bring down the San Francisco police or make them stop arresting people for doing completely legal things in private bars and parties. He couldn't change the past or fix his loneliness...but he could help show this boy that there were amazing things out there.  
  
With renewed confidence, he slipped past the drink table and over to the young man by the pantry. His blue eyes were stunning at this distance, his hair streaked with blond from what Blaine guessed was time out in the sun all summer, and though he stiffened as Blaine approached, he didn't run away or try to excuse himself to another quiet corner. He offered a faint nervous smile and clutched his drink with both hands. Blaine took it upon himself to begin - the young man was probably too afraid to.  
  
"My name's Blaine."


End file.
